Super Sales on Super Heroes: Book 2

Chapter 30 - War Crimes -

Frowning, Felix shifted his weight from one foot to the other.

They’d camped out in the old hull of a small knick-knack shack and were waiting for nightfall. This had been home-base for Julia and company.

The supplies at this location had already been carted back to the post office with Katy and Lauren. Eva was on duty there, guarding the entrance with Derek.

He was staring at the crude map Julia had brought in for him. It was drawn by hand by one of the men he’d killed, and though simple, at least had information.

Information was beyond priceless right now.

Apparently her group had been in the area for a while and had been working on establishing a “turf” of sorts.

The building he was interested in right now was a pawnshop that was only a street away. It’d been one of the purchases Kit had made on his behalf after the prison break. He’d wanted caches stored away for usage around the city. The idea of his people being trapped in a prison break without the means to survive had bothered him.

“You say there’s a gang there?” Felix asked.

“Yeah. We crossed paths with them once or twice. They left off when Ca… when we got the gun. They’ve been trying to build out in the opposite direction that we were. Mostly protection money stuff. There’s some small camps here and there.” Julia shrugged her shoulders.

“Mm. Alright. How many do you think there are?” Felix had decided that the first move was to see if they could get a hold of the Legion cache. There was a strong possibility it’d have a line back to HQ. If it did, he could summon reinforcements and get out of here as quick as could be.

“Twenty? We didn’t really get a good count. They left us alone after we… after we killed a few. Guns are power,” Julia said.

“Any reason they chose the pawnshop, by the way?” Felix asked as casually as he could.

“Uhhh? I think someone said they found a door. Steel door. They got that open and didn’t find anything though. Was empty. Someone beat ‘em there. They stuck around because it only has the one door in the front, no windows,” Julia said after a minute of thought. Her face was twisting into a grimace. “Didn’t believe them though and kept digging for information.”

Good. That’s perfect.

Though I wonder if she was the one with the knife when they were asking for that info.

“Don’t grow a conscience on my part. I’ve done far worse to people I liked better,” Felix said, standing up. “That’s the plan then. We go take the pawnshop and clear the building.”

“And just how are you going to do that?” Steve asked.

“Two nasty things that when you mix ’em together cause a problem,” Felix said, pointing to the bag in the corner.

When he’d found the products, he’d realized he could weaponize it. All he had to do was find a building he could use it on and not worry about innocent casualties.

Most everyone in the city seemed to be operating under the idea that this was all going to blow over sooner than people feared. Felix was of a differing opinion, and was treating this as if it were the end times. With that perspective in mind, Felix didn’t really care much for any rules or laws that’d prevent him from protecting his people and himself.

He wasn’t positive, but he was pretty sure that the pawnshop would have a vent he could dump it all into and then cover up the entry with a thick blanket.

These cache buildings only had their sub-basements modified. Everything else was left as is for both the building, and the occupants.

Case in point, the vent system would be a very normal everyday thing that probably had a exhaust vent that’d be turned off without any power.

“I don’t understand,” Katy said, looking from the bag to Felix.

“Don’t worry about the details, but we’re going to bug bomb them. Just be ready to welcome anyone who comes out. Preferably with your weapon. They won’t exactly be sticking around once they see what’s going on. After that it’ll just be a matter of waiting for the gas to clear out,” Felix said.

Moving to the corner he picked up his bag and exited the room. “Get the map, Julia,” he called over his shoulder, not waiting or looking back.

He kept their pace fast on their way there. It wasn’t far but it wasn’t exactly close either. Depending on how much they pulled out, it could be a rather long trek back, too. Guessing on the outcome, it was likely they’d spend the day at the shop until nightfall.

He was glad he’d already warned Eva of that possibility as well.

When they finally got there, he’d been surprised to find the fire-escape had already been pulled down to street level. It’d made access to the roof easy and practically without a problem.

The harder part was keeping quiet as they got on the roof.

“You do realize this is a war crime,” Steve whispered, peering down into the vent below them.

“You’ll have to tell me what they think about it when I’m done,” Felix replied, spinning open the top to the bleach.

“What do you mean? They won’t be thinking at all. They’ll be dead.”

“That’d be my point. You know, you’re a good person, Steve. I don’t think this is the life for you. Remind me to transfer you to something that isn’t on the front line. Like teaching or providing expertise. No sense in wasting a resource.” Felix upended the bleach into the vent above the pawnshop.

“What? I just don’t like the idea of gassing an entire building full of people. It’s not wrong to believe that.”

Felix shrugged and pulled out the second bottle. Not bothering to check the label, he knew what the contents were and what they’d do, he turned it upside down over the vent.

“Get that blanket ready. This is going to go bad pretty fast. We need to get out of here as soon as we’re done, too,” Felix said softly.

Steve shook his head, clutching the blanket a bit tighter to his chest.

Felix couldn’t fault him for his attitude. Steve was a good person, trying to do the right thing, in a bad situation.

Those were the type of people who people wrote stories about.

Counter to him was Julia, who simply acted for whatever her interest was. She was much closer to Felix in sentiment.

“Toss it on, we’re done here. Let’s get back down and get ready.”

“Can’t we—”

“No. No prisoners. Nowhere to put ’em. Just… give the wounded to Julia. She has her orders. No need for you to bloody your hands. This isn’t your call, and you can’t save them. But I can at least spare you that,” Felix said.

Turning on his heel, Felix moved as quickly as he could manage while keeping silent. Right about the time he slipped in close to Julia’s left side, he could hear coughing coming from inside the building.

“What’d you do?” Julia asked.

“I made it so we could take them out as they come out. If they don’t come out, they’ll die in there anyways. No prisoners, Julia. I expect you to leave no one alive. Take anything worth a damn and set it to one side,” Felix ordered.

“Huh? Why?” Julia griped.

“Because you’re probably the only person, other than me, with blood on their hands. Did you notice all the weapons our compatriots chose?” Felix asked.

Julia’s head turned towards Steve, Nancy, and Amy. “The weapons they chose?” she asked under her breath.

The coughing was growing louder.

“All blunt weapons that I’m betting they’ll use on arms and legs. Or torso and shoulders. Hoping they’ll fall down unconscious or in pain. No… this’ll be you and me, I’m afraid, and some ugly blade work,” Felix said. “Now get ready, here they come. Remember, fatal attacks if possible upfront. Less to deal with on the backside.”

Julia nodded her head to that, gripping the machete in her hand tighter.

Felix had decided to stick with the blade he’d found the night previous. He’d already blooded it after all.

That, and the gas more than likely took his opponents’ ability to see clearly.

Or so he hoped.

A man burst out of the door and stepped out into the night, hacking and coughing heavily. Light green vapor wafted out behind him before the door closed.

Worked like a charm.

The man was rubbing at his eyes with both hands, not even looking at his surroundings. Julia smashed a rock into the man’s temple, dropping him to the ground. Grunting, she pushed the body of the man up against the door, then leaned up against it.

“Fuck you and your ‘fatal attacks’ and whatever else you wanted me to do,” Julia said. Sliding down to her bottom atop the unconscious man. She wedged her shoulders and braced her feet. “They can all stay in there and be on your own conscience. Not mine.”

Nancy and Amy were there before she even finished talking. Gripping the door handle, Amy held onto it while Nancy sat down right next to Julia.

“Overcomplicated bullshit. Are all your ideas like this?” Julia complained.

“Huh,” Felix said, standing up slowly from his crouch. “That works, too. We’re going to work out just fine together, Julia.”

Felix could hear shouting and coughing from inside the building. The pounding of fists and feet on the door.

Probably a few shoulder checks.

Nancy and Julia bounced with each hit, but neither woman budged away from their job as a door wedge.

Well. We’ll give it a few hours, then pull the cover off the vent to help it disperse.

Figure by morning we should be able to get in there and take a look around.

Maybe.

Hopefully.

Felix had spent last night and early this morning on trying to figure out what he could do with his points.

However… everything he tried was astronomically inflated.

There was nothing he could do.

With anything.

To anything.

Owning it or not, something was terribly wrong with his power. To the point that he was now certain that there was an outside source influencing him.

Focus, Felix. Focus.

Breathing in through the wet cloth, and redirecting his thoughts, Felix stepped over the bodies in the entry area of the pawnshop.

There were at least fifteen bodies right here, crowding each other at the door.

Guess that worked pretty well.

He didn’t dare wait any longer since dawn was coming. They didn’t want to be out in the street when daylight came.

No one wanted to be out unless they had to.

Hoping that the stupid wet cloth would work as an filter well enough that he didn’t die, Felix pressed on. He didn’t bother with the corpses and instead went straight into the sales room.

Most of the pawnshop’s sales floor was littered with stolen loot, food, resources, and camping items. It was clear this group had been here for a while.

Ignoring it all, he kept on, making his way to the backroom.

There in the corner he found the no longer concealed trapdoor. That led to a steel door that’d been ripped off its hinges. He had no idea how they’d managed that.

That led straight into a concrete room with nothing in it. There were chips in all of the walls. It was clear that whoever had checked the room had tried to determine if the walls were truly concrete.

Standing in the center of the room, Felix cleared his throat and lifted the fabric up from his mouth.

“Felix Campbell,” he said to no one.

Nothing happened.

Really, Felicia? I know you said you did, but I was hoping you were kidding.

Sighing, Felix cleared his throat again.

There was a slight burning sensation in his mouth and eyes.

He had to make this quick, it didn’t seem as if the gas was quite gone.

“Felix Campbell, holy fucking shit.”

A grinding noise came from the floor itself. Looking down, he realized the entire thing was divided into six portions, and the two on the furthest side from the door were moving.

They were literally sliding into the wall.

“Felicia, I hate you, and love you,” Felix said in a muffled voice, pulling the wet fabric back down over his mouth.

Waiting only long enough for the floor to make a hole wide enough, Felix dropped down into the hole it’d made. It was a staircase that spiraled downward for at least thirty feet. He only went two steps down before he decided it’d be better to go back and get everyone else.

Returning two minutes later, Felix started to make his way down the steps.

“So, it’s true then,” Julia said from behind him.

“Which part?” Felix asked.

“That you’re Felix Campbell, the CEO of Legion,” Nancy said.

“Yes, he really is,” Steve confirmed.

Felix ignored them all. He didn’t feel like answering, and they seemed perfectly happy to answer for him.

When he reached the bottom, Felix found exactly what he was hoping for.

Sealed Legion crates.

They were all hermetically sealed and packed tight. Made and built at machine standard with no expense spared so that they could be shipped and held in reserve if ever needed.

The need had come first for planet Legion.

Michael had literal tons of these cases in store rooms to arm his recruits if he needed to. At least until they could build up a suitable force on site with an armory.

“Holy shit,” Julia said.

“First and foremost…” Felix said, moving to a glowing panel off to one side. He pressed the activation button. Lights flickered on, and multiple displays to the right of the panel he was working in turned on.

Pressing a finger to the “close door” function, Felix heard the cement above grinding closed. Before the entry had even closed, Felix pulled the wet cloth free and flicked it towards the stairwell.

“Figure out what you want, but don’t open anything. Every crate should have a contents list on the top,” Felix said. Moving over to the next panel he pressed his thumb to the security reader. The screen flickered and opened up into the launch page and he started to read it over.

“This… this is incredible,” Julia said, moving to the closest crate. “I’ve never seen anything like it.”

“I get the impression this is a small cache,” Steve said, leaning over a crate, scanning the list.

“Why do you say that?” Amy asked, staying close to his side.

“The crate itself has an entire designation, and at the end is a dash with the letter S. If I don’t miss my guess about our intrepid leader,” Steve drawled. “The S denotes this is a small crate, or a small cache, or a small load-out.”

“Yes,” Felix said, then promptly tuned them out.

He was gliding through the screen to figure out what he had access to.

Manifests, shipping logs, inventory and warehouse expectations, distribution, links to the other caches… where’s the communication panel? This is all localized to the city, but nothing linking back to Legion HQ.

A sickening fear starting to build in his heart, Felix closed this panel down and moved to the next.

Mashing his thumb into the security scanner he impatiently waited. As soon as the screen opened up, he began to flip through the settings and windows. This one was more about the building itself. Everything and anything to do with the pawnshop.

Grunting, Felix closed that one up and moved to the last panel. Barely managing to keep his fear in check, he crammed his thumb into the security window.

The landing page opened with the single word “communications” as the title.

Ah, here we are. I was getting worried.

Managing to get through the windows he began to cycle through all the available options. Finally he found what he was looking for. A simple message system that tied all the caches to the local HQ.

Opening the program, Felix began to type in a quick rescue and recovery request to pick him up. It wouldn’t take long for someone to get out here with enough forces to break through, retrieve him, and get out.

Snapping his finger down on the enter key, he reached up with his other hand and hit the send button.

Perfect. Now we just sit back and wait for rescue. This wasn’t too bad.

Though definitely learned a few things.

The hourglass icon on the screen flipped over and then froze. It changed into a spinning circle, and a window popped up.

Error. There is no connection to HQ. The message could not be sent. The diagnostic tool reports that there is a signal interruption that appears to be a fiber cut.

Would you like to log your message and send it once the connection has been re-established?

Felix ground his teeth together and selected the no option.

He wasn’t going to get the quick exit he’d been hoping for.

“Alright. Let’s figure out everything we want to take with us, and get some shut-eye. We’ll need to be ready to move tonight with whatever we can carry. We can always make a second trip if we need to, but I’d rather not,” Felix said, turning around to his small group. “I’ll pop open a camping supply crate and start pulling out what we need for a decent rest. Sleep in turns so everyone gets a chance to go through the lists and sleep. One person up, everyone else sleeping. Questions?”

Everyone shook their head.

“Let’s hop to then. Quick quick like a bunny,” Felix said, clapping his hands together.