Who: Colt Byron & an extremely critical Thomas Brandon What: A business proposal, in support of Byron's Academy Where: The Academy--which is still under construction. When: Three days after this conversation, which makes it four days after the Ball. Warnings: Some Corbinian-bashing on Thomas' part. And perhaps an unhealthy level of hotness considering how much money these two have between them and how good they look in their clothes.
Thomas didn’t like going out during the day as much, as he was now aware just how much it impeded his usual function. He’d been doing tests. Tests that Jane would no doubt disapprove of, as she’d told him to rest. For Thomas, “rest” meant staying off the streets and listening to police scanners while doing everything humanly possible to be productive while not actually taking action. He’d been monitoring his healing process with excessive detail, and he had Thomas, Inc. acquire a bankrupt hospital just to have access to their presently abandoned x-ray imaging facilities. He was cautious of overexposure to the rays, but there was no question that his shoulder and ribs were healing at an accelerated rate as long as he stayed in the warehouse.
He gave himself three days before he came out, and his secretary, despite consistent contact as he “telecommuted” was in a froth about the number of things he needed to do. That morning he attended two different board meetings, listened to a briefing on the Charity’s progress, made a few key staffing decisions, approved some plans for an R&D department, and drafted a quick proposal to the mayor for some of his city-planning projects. He had lean turkey on wheat for lunch on his way to his afternoon meetings, hired a second assistant for his secretary before she collapsed of heart failure at twenty-seven, and arrived for his meeting with Colt Byron only twenty-minutes late.
Colt had spent the past three days killing himself with physical therapy in the morning, while telling Erin he was sleeping in (which she did not believe for an instant, he knew), and barking at her in the afternoons as she got the work crews in order and cobbled together a three-year plan (all while complaining at him about his accelerated timeline). It had, all things considered, been a very good three days.
The afternoon of the fourth day found him at The Academy for the first time since he’d purchased the property, in a damn wheelchair he had delivered that day and hadn’t told Erin about. He had no intention of being in the damn thing when Brandon arrived, but it was his only chance at getting from Aubade to the school. He hadn’t told Erin he was coming, and he texted her once he was there (Furniture arriving in an hour. Let them in?), just to keep her from coming looking for him.
There was a receptionist already installed at the new front desk, and he told her he would be on the second level and to send Brandon up when he arrived. Last minute work was being done in all the rooms, and they still had a week to go before opening. He took the elevator up to the overlook that had been cleared out on the second level, and he left the chair in the elevator and leaned heavily on his cane. It was old, the cane, military issue with a service commendation engraved on the top knob.
He could manage an hour on his feet if he was lucky, and he was hoping the overlook would offer enough of a view to satisfy Brandon. He leaned on the veranda, grateful for the extra support, and he waited.
Thomas wanted to see as much of the facility as possible, and he was doing what he always did when he entered a building, and that was mental blueprints for recon. He looked for security cameras, for sightlines, for anything that didn’t belong in a building of this size and age, and found only the blatant leavings of working crews that were adding extra support to the aging structure and replacing non-standard insulation. He noticed that there were electricians adding wiring, but on a pretense of dropping his phone, he noted that the wiring was standard hi-speed data connections and power surge protection to meet fire code. Not satisfied, but at least not on edge, he continued up the stairs, pulling his shirtsleeves under the clean lines of the blue suit and straightening his cufflinks. He joined Colt Byron on the veranda, every inch the wealthy investor, and not even close to winded by his trip up the winding stair. He held out a polite hand as he approached. “Byron, I presume.”
“Last I checked,” Colt said easily, taking Brandon’s hand for a firm shake. He was wearing jeans and a button down white shirt made of plain old American cotton, and his hat was on his head, and there was boots on his feet. His grammar was perfect, and his accent was Southeastern United States, mainly because his father had never cared enough in his madness to get the accent worked on. He was wealthy enough to buy this place and get it fixed up without any chance of a profit, but he didn’t care for appearances (beyond looking like he could walk along the veranda). He pointed to the opening above the first floor with his cane, and he looked over at the man in the perfectly pressed suit. “You want to go take a run around the place before we talk? I’ve got nothing to hide.”
“Before or after.” Thomas made absolutely no judgments about Colt based on his appearance. He accurately located the accent, which matched the hat, which generally meant that he was telling the truth: he didn’t have anything to hide. Thomas was, therefore, no better off than he had been before, and armed only with what he’d learned with his background research on Colt Byron. The shake was slightly reassuring, but generally Thomas did his best to fight the natural sociological inclinations of human contact. They could be faked.
Colt gave him a smile that was as blunt as the look in his eyes. “How about the secretary walks you around, and we meet up back here.” He held up the cane, giving Thomas a look that wasn’t quite apologetic, a look that said he wouldn’t take any damn pity either, not that he expected this man to give it.
“After, then,” Thomas said, smoothly, glancing at the cane as he was expected to do, but no more than that. The move was natural, without pity, without any visible reaction at all; but perhaps with compassion. If he had been aware of that, he would probably fight it as another ‘natural sociological inclination.’ Thomas was very good at avoiding his better qualities. He turned toward a set of patio chairs that were tasteful, demure, and very typically Erin. “Tell me what exactly you plan to teach here.”
Colt moved away from the veranda, leaning heavily on the cane as he walked toward the patio chairs and gratefully took a seat in one. “You’ll forgive me if I sit before you do,” he told Thomas, leaning the cane against the arm of the chair. “The way I see it, we’ve got a problem. We’ve brought this mess of kids across from Musings, and they all think they’re supposed to be superheroes. Now, that’s all well and good, except most of them don’t know what they can do, how to control it, and they sure as hell don’t know how to defend themselves out there doing it.”
Thomas raised both eyebrows. It was a bare half-inch of a raise, a slight skepticism, a polite expression of surprise. “Physical self-defense, then?” Colt Byron’s military background may lend him the illusion that he was equipped to train a small army, and that was something that Thomas was more interested in bringing to a grinding, unpleasant reality than anything else.
“More than that. Hopefully, we can get the right kind of teachers in here, and we can get it out of their heads that they have to go out there and do the shit they’re doing. They’re brave, which I respect, but I’d rather see them in college and alive. These men out there, they’re killing vigilantes now, and these kids, they’re walking around with targets on their backs. White facepaint they wash off at the first command, bright costumes that make them easy to hit as a semi, bleeding all over things and leaving DNA all over, and leaving dumb as rocks calling cards for themselves. It’s a game to them. They’re playing at being Batman, and they’re too damn young to realize that being dead is permanent. Someone’s got to get that through to them, and it’s got to be someone they trust. Someplace they trust.”
Thomas listened to all this with a growing sense of responsibility. He had set an example that others, like Robin, were trying to follow, and he hadn’t equipped them with anything like his sense of caution, and he was why they thought they could be successful at it. He sat at the edge of his patio chair with the expensive cuffs just brushing the expensive oiled leather of his shoes and wondered what he could have done to avoid this phenomenon. Die in an extremely bloody fashion, probably. Well, he’d come near enough to that.
Expression sober, Thomas said, “I don’t disagree, but what makes this place somewhere they would trust?”
“We have to earn it,” Colt admitted. “You can’t expect to have trust or respect handed to you. But I think there’s enough people in this town that can make that happen, enough people that care about these stupid kids and what they’re doing.” It was true. There was enough mentions of all of this on the forums and in the newspapers that it could work, if they started it right. “Plus, we have an advantage, something to draw them in. Once we draw them in, we just have to keep them.”
Eyebrow. “What’s the advantage?”
“We can tell them what their abilities are.”
Thomas took his weight off his knees and sat up straight with a look Colt might not have expected from him; a sort of sapphirine intensity that hadn’t ever been present in his eyes before, which otherwise might have been described as unremarkable, somewhere between brown and gray.
Colt chuckled at the immediate change in demeanor. “That got your attention, did it?” he asked, and he took his hat off and rested it on the table in front of them.
He looked briefly at the hat--well, more at where Colt was putting his hands--and back at him. “How exactly do you plan on doing that?”
Colt held up his right hand, and he stretched his fingers. He didn’t make any sort of move toward Brandon, and he spoke before Thomas had a chance to panic. “You would have felt it, when we shook hands. I can control it, so don’t go acting all worried. I can show you, if you need proof.”
“Show me.” Thomas put his hand out again, palm up, without any trace of fear, all calculation in his gaze.
Colt shook his head and laughed to himself, because he’d expected this man to shy away from letting anyone know anything about him. “I didn’t expect you to be so willing, Brandon,” he admitted. He didn’t give Thomas a chance to change his mind; he just let his hand fall on the inside of Thomas’ wrist, two fingers against the pulse point there. There was definitely a feeling associated with the passing of information, a sort of a electrical current that tickled the nerves from head to toe, and then a tug of information through the epidermis.
Colt didn’t see images or words; his ability was one about understanding, something on the most basic level of things. “Stay out of the sun, Brandon,” was the first thing he said as he sat back, steepling his fingers in front of his face. “You run better at night. And by better, I mean better than the rest of us. More efficient, like an engine purring on purer fuel. Faster, stronger, heal faster, need less time to recover. But you already knew that, because you were testing me just now.”
Thomas shook his head slightly, taking his hand back and giving his fingers a little stretch from knuckle to knuckle on the hand that Colt had touched. “I only had theories. It’s a hard thing to prove, and I couldn’t be sure...” he trailed off, asserted his chin over his tie. “But I guess it’s true. I have not had much occasion to test it.” Now that was an out-and-out lie; he just hadn’t had the occasion to notice until recently. He pressed the tips of his fingers into his palm, and then he sat back in the chair. It was not the pose of a man at ease. This was a man that was used to working, and if it was behind a desk, he certainly never lounged. “That’s information that is very valuable to me,” Thomas said, with the air of thinking aloud. “I can see how it would be valuable to others, particularly since your understanding appears to be complete.” He turned his head to Colt and tipped it slightly. “And if I asked, say, at what percentage I might be able to exert myself in comparison to myself in Musings, would you be able to tell me that?”
“It isn’t about a number, Brandon. It’s about what’s going on inside you. If you’re injured, for example, it’ll be less effective than if you aren’t, or if you’re run down or exhausted. At the far end, you can probably outlast every damn one of us, with the right circumstances. If we go back to that old car analogy, if you’ve got everything tuned up and purring, you can do the best with that ability. If you’re using bad gas, and you haven’t changed the oil, and the cars been running for days on end, you might not notice a damn bit of difference, no matter how dark it is outside.”
Thomas sat back and digested that. Indeed, it was very valuable. It made sense that he hadn’t detected the difference before; he’d been focused on making an impression with the Batman and securing his own assets, creating back up plans for back up plans, crafting Thomas, Inc. He sat very still and thought about all this for a little while, about how he might be able to do more in less time as long as he was careful about how much he did in the day. He would have to put more trust in his associates at Thomas, Inc. A risk--but one that made the Bat, as they called him here, far more effective.
Finally Thomas said, “So they come for your diagnosis. Then what?”
“Diagnosis is part of the curriculum,” Colt clarified. There was a distinct difference.
Thomas smiled a very small smile. “They come for your diagnosis and they get...?”
“They get enrolled with their fake names and their little lies that they’ll think we believe, and then we talk to them. And once we tell them their abilities, we cater classes around their abilities, and we impart our message between lessons.” He grinned. “It’s all in how you talk to kids, Brandon. They think they know everything, but you’ve got to pick up on their cues and feed them what they want to know but don’t, the things they won’t admit not knowing.”
“I won’t pretend to have any experience with children, Byron.” Nothing could be truer. Thomas shook his head, but it was not a negative. “I’ll want to see more of what you plan on teaching and meet some of your teachers.” He was temporarily agreeing to give his support, but he leaned forward. There were going to be some heavy caveats. “However,” he said, precisely, “there will be no medical care here beyond cuts and bruises. You will keep no records, electronic or physical. Security feeds are live with no storage. Are you planning on making this a housing facility?”
Colt chuckled. “You’re used to coming on in a place and taking over, aren’t you?” he asked. “It’s my school, Brandon, even if you give it a public thumbs up.” With that said, he leaned back in his chair. “I’m not starting a hospital, but I’d rather they come here than bleed to death out there. What are your concerns with that?” he asked, because he very much wanted to understand where Brandon was coming from. “As for the records, I’m not a fool, man. What the hell are you thinking? Housing wasn’t on the agenda, unless you feel like convincing me otherwise.”
“I’m concerned you’re building a little army, Byron,” Thomas said, bluntly, matching Colt’s arrogance with a certain kind of his own, a solidity that came from a lot of experience. There was something of a soldier about Thomas Brandon that wasn’t anything like military. It was hard to pin down, exactly; he didn’t sound like a general, because a general was used to working with people below him, around him, for him. Thomas spoke like someone who ruled his own roost--and he was the only one in it. “I want them safe, and safe means no medical testing, no records to be exposed, and no housing that might become a target.”
“Medical testing, now that’s a different thing altogether. I’m wanting to keep these kids safe, Brandon, not turn this into some experimental facility,” Colt said, enough outrage in the declaration that was it was undoubtedly true. He leaned forward then, arms on the table. “You know what I did in Alaska? I watched boys come in to be trained, and then I watched them ship out to die. I’ve got no interest in armies, Brandon. I want these kids off the streets, not on them. And I’ve got no agenda to speak of. You looked up my records, and you know what I stood against in the service. These abilities we’ve got, some people can’t handle them, some people don’t know how. Some people got the shit end of the straw and they can do and hear and see things that make them the wrong side of crazy, and they’ve got no idea why.” He paused. “Those people, we help. And we tell stupid kids in white facepaint not to walk into people’s houses and wash the damn shit off just because they’re asked, and we tell little girls that just because they can make keys doesn’t mean they should open doors.” He had the decency to look slightly apologetic for the outburst, but only slightly.
Thomas listened to this tirade with interest. It appeared that Colt Byron was actually sincere, something he hadn’t come across in very many upper level military servicemen--probably because he didn’t come across very many of those, period. “I assume you speak from experience,” he said. His attention sharpened when Byron spoke of facepaint, and it wasn’t a good kind of sharpening. “You plan on harboring murderers here, Byron?”
“I plan on convincing misguided kids to change their ways,” he said with equal sharpness and candor. “And if I find out anyone is killing anything after admission, then they won’t be in this school any longer.” He watch Thomas for a second. “Where do you draw the line, Brandon? If someone is defending someone, saving them, and there’s a death in self defense, is that killing? If one of these kids marks people as their vigilante work, how about that? If one of them kills someone by mistake, what about them? Do you draw the line at torture? Do they have to just tie them up and take them in?” He asked it all in an even tone that didn’t give any hint of exactly where he, himself drew the line.
“The Corbinian is not a ‘kid,’” Thomas replied, with a voice lined with lead. “And he doesn’t kill in self-defense. I draw the line at unnecessary death.” He said it with funeral finality.
“The Corbinian? That’s what that fool kid calls himself? Christ. He’s barely over twenty, and he’s an idiot,” Colt said. “He saved someone I care about, and I acknowledge that means I’m giving him a pass when I normally wouldn’t, because I’m indebted. But like I said, if he comes in here, he’s done with the killing. And I read him the riot act for doing it already; I’m not interested in creating killers, Brandon.”
Thomas didn’t like that, he didn’t like that one bit. He didn’t like the Corbinian, either, it was clear, and he didn’t have any mercy for him, no matter what age he was. “If he comes here,” Thomas said, finally. “We’ll see.” He stood up, with a certain precision that was probably not lost on Colt, and nodded at him. “You can put my name on it, under the terms we discussed. I’ll be checking in here to make sure that’s the case. If you need assistance hiring, or with work, or finances,” (here a raised brow indicated he thought this was unlikely), “be sure to leave a note with my secretary.” He didn’t put his hand out again.
Colt leaned back in the chair, and he folded his hands behind his head as he looked at the man that had just gotten to his feet across from him. It figured the stupid kid, Jack, had managed to somehow piss off the most powerful Creation in Seattle. Stupid kid. “Thank you kindly, Brandon,” he said, without repeating any of the terms. He wasn’t worried about going against Thomas Brandon’s moral code, though he did find it interesting that it was such an important thing to the man. “I won’t ask why it all matters so much,” he said, sharp gaze around the smile letting Thomas know that he was no idiot himself, despite the southern slur and the cowboy hat. “But it’s been noted that it matters.”
“Thank you,” he said, without any trace of humor. And then he left to see the rest of the building--without bothering the secretary.