No One Mourns

No one mourns when a villain goes missing. The citizens celebrate months of peace, police relax knowing there’s one less calamity around the corner, politicians pat themselves on the back for a job they never did. The city breathes.

Atlas, however, found no peace in the calm. He saw it not as the peace following a war, but as the calm before a storm. Something was coming, something big. There had to be. Your nemesis doesn’t go silent for months on end unless he’s plotting his next scheme. And if Atlas knew anything about Ricochet, it was that the longer he had to prepare, the worse the impact of his attacks.

Atlas could rescue kittens from trees and stop bank robberies all week, but if he didn’t take the initiative and find Ricochet before he could enact his plans, lives would be lost. The damage would be immeasurable. He would fail the people who looked at him like the god he took his name from.

It had taken some time, but after an extensive search and numerous interrogations of associated criminals, he pinned down the location of Ricochet’s hideout. Miles beyond the city limits, beneath the guise of a ramshackle farmhouse, his lair was buried. Atlas quickly found a hatch amidst the rubble of what might have been a barn once, metal door cloaked by holograms to look like an old fridge buried in the dirt. When the door wouldn’t open for him, he smashed into it with enough force to cave in the entrance entirely.

With a dust cloud trailing behind him he floated down a dark corridor, dimly lit along both walls by red floor lights whose light barely reached the ceiling. The air was musty. Old. It had been some time since this hall saw any use.

The door at the end was quickly ripped from the wall and tossed aside to reveal the equivalent of a detective’s office. Cork boards covered in thumbtacks and loose papers lined stone walls, parallel to shelves of boxes and familiar devices Atlas had seen during past battles. A desk in the corner with several monitors atop, keyboard thrown on the floor along with several books. The desk chair knocked over and missing a wheel. Another door, dented as if something on the other side had smashed into it.

The pages on the board detailed studies of… someone. Or some thing. Atlas followed connections drawn between pages upon pages of tests done on blood and dna, camera logs, and a.i. generated projections answering various “what ifs”, but couldn’t make sense of it. Yellow post notes flashed at him from all the white space, with bright red writing that grew progressively more messy.

“Bad response to 213, toss batch.”

“Evolving. Why?”

“Forough doesn’t remember.”

“What went wrong??”

“Increase door security. Fortify vents.”

“Forough remembers.”

Crossed out were the words “Too late to stop,” and in smaller letters beneath, “Too late to quit.”

Atlas backed away from the board and continued on to the next room. A lab space in a state of disarray, test tubes and research notes scattered amidst puddles of mysterious fluid on the ground. In one corner, a giant vertical tube that could hold a bear. Various charts and body scans filled a dozen screens along the adjacent wall. A long metal table held every surgical implement imaginable, half of which looked dulled and chipped from overuse.

A trail of empty tranquilizer darts led from the giant tube to the other corner of the room. Several control panels were housed behind steel walls and thick glass, but the steel itself was heavily dented, the glass cracked and gouged. The door was torn open, leaving jagged metal around a gaping hole at the center. A rifle with a twisted barrel lay discarded on the floor along with a dozen more tranquilizers, and Ricochet’s torn mask. From there, streaks of old, dried blood made tracks leading back out to yet another door.

A chill ran down his spine as he followed them. Walking through the space felt far too easy for his liking. He knew Ricochet. He knew him to be more cautious than this, more secure. He had enough tech in his arsenal to fortify New York City, nevermind a small bunker like this.

“So where is he?” Atlas wondered.

All he could do was follow the blood, and the pungent smell that grew worse the further he went. The path led him through winding halls, past open rooms he didn’t bother checking, to one final room whose door had been ripped from the wall.

A single light from the ceiling was all that illuminated the space. On the opposite wall was a heavily armored bulkhead, covered top to bottom in every kind of locking mechanism imaginable. Some were old, dull, rusted. Some were much newer, polished and shiny as if they’d been put in place yesterday. 

Some were broken, misshapen and clawed out of place. 

The blood led beneath the door, and as Atlas drew near he heard soft crying from beyond. He placed a hand on the door's surface, sharp and cool on his skin, but felt warmth from the other side. 

“Help me. Please. Help me.” 

Atlas shuddered at the sound of the voice. He got no sense of desperation from whoever pleaded with him, no urgency. It sounded human, but only barely.

“Let me out. Please.”

He didn’t have time to question it. If Ricochet was holding someone hostage, he needed to do something. He needed to free them. As he undid the first locking mechanism he heard a rasping cough behind him. 

“Don’t… just… don’t.”

Atlas turned to find Ricochet slumped in the corner behind him, clothing in tatters and caked in blood. His right hand held his ribs while his left arm hung limply at his side, broken at an odd angle. Without his signature mask Atlas could see Ricochet’s face, perhaps for the first time in all their encounters over the years.

There was fear in his eyes. Pain and exhaustion, but fear above all else. They flickered back and forth between Atlas and the door, beyond which a quiet scratching could be heard.

Ricochet took a shaky breath and locked eyes with the hero, voice cracking as he begged. “Please, don’t do it.”