Tomorrow Morning

Which wasn’t great timing. I mean, it meant I didn’t have long to panic, or get myself wrapped up in my own head, but that was just about the only benefit. I was definitely going to need a sleeping pill for tonight…but not until I dealt with the other problem. I’d actually had plans for Saturday morning. I was supposed to be Kat’s backup when she was extracting Jewelz’s betrayal of her escort agency…

Goddamn it.

Was I missing out on a chance at Jewelz again? Yes, yes I was. But I’d keep things moving forward…but how? Kat needed backup and I sure as fuck wasn’t getting Asa or Kianna to do it…Rapetoy? I mean, she was ex-police and could definitely handle Jewelz if Kat messed things up. I couldn’t trust her, but I could control her. Fuck.

A few text messages later and it was set. Neither of them was happy about it, but neither objected. Nor did I get that last golden +1 SP for Kat. I really needed to focus and figure that out, but I kept getting distracted. Not as much as I did whenever I got a shot at Jewelz, but distracted.

With that done, I had to do the hard part. I texted both Asa and Diamond the same thing.

Meeting’s tomorrow morning. I’ll let you know when its done.

The responses of both were pithy, vulgar and strangely loving in their obvious, but unstated concern.

It didn’t help. The sleeping pill did. I took it, spent another 3 credits buying some more open slots, just in case, with the upgrade to A Good Start To A Harem. I was annoyed to notice that my next upgrade would cost 4 credits. But before I could be more than moderately annoyed, the pill knocked me flat on my ass.

My alarm clock waking me up was the next thing I remembered after signing off. Which was…fine. For the first time in a while, I strapped on a gun. Concealed carry permit in my wallet, the gun was holstered in the small of my back as I headed towards the destination.

It was, hopefully coincidentally, the same neighborhood I was hoping to rebuild. I’d made a couple visits and it was mostly deserted. As a place for an ambush, or a counter-ambush, it was pretty good. I looked around the ruins and jumped a foot in the air, damn near injuring myself as the holstered pistol dug into flesh when Batman spoke from behind me.

Which simply should not have been fucking possible. There were some leftover walls around, but I had clear lines of sight and though it was early morning, it wasn’t that early. There was plenty of light to make a man dressed up like a black bat extremely obvious. Or there bloody well should have been.

“Finally.”

I looked at my watch. I was exactly on time and said as much.

“Early is on time. On time is late. Late is unacceptable.”

I stared at him for a moment and I genuinely lost my temper. “Are you FUCKING kidding me? I’m trusting you with my life and you can’t be bothered to give me clear goddamn instructions about what you actually want instead of playing stupid games? Nope. Not happening. Fuck this. I’m out.”

“We had a deal, Mr. Cain,” his voice was low and threatening.

“And that was predicated on you being able to live up to your end of the bargain, something I no longer trust. So again, fuck you, I’m out.”

“Get that out of your system?” he asked as I walked towards my car.

“Nope.”

“Unfortunate, I hoped it would calm you down.”

“Didn’t.”

“Well, since it’s too late to back out, you’ll have to do your best. Without this,” he held up a gun. My gun. Which he had somehow gotten out of the holster in the small of my back in between the moment it had dug into my back when I jumped on his arrival and the moment I turned around to see what he was holding. “I do not care for guns, Mr. Cain.”

I paused. Took a deep breath. Counted to ten. Did all the shit you’re supposed to do. And it worked. “Since you’re obviously going to get what you want, Mr. Batman, what’s my role?”

“Poke around a bit, like you’ve been doing, until she shows up. Zatanna and I will handle it from there.”

“The two of you against her and all her goons?”

“No goons. They were imported muscle and when she killed two of them, the others went looking for new jobs. They’ve signed up with Two-Face,” Batman offered.

“Okay. So, I just what, putter around the place, looking at stuff, until a psycho magic user shows up to **** me?”

“Kidnap you,” Zatanna said, from a floating disc behind me.

I jumped again and this time it was the empty holster that dug into my back. I was starting to hate both these assholes.

“So she can **** you later,” Batman said.

“Encouraging.”

“We’ll be around and I’ve got quite a few protections already in place, just stay in this general area and it’ll all be fine,” Zatanna said reassuringly.

I shrugged and got to work. I wasn’t accomplishing much, just some basic site clean-up, but it gave me something to do and distracted me a bit as we waited for Jinx to notice she could find me now with her magic. I was going to laugh if she’d just stopped looking sometime earlier and this whole plan fell apart.

Of course, it didn’t. Batman plan, after all.

It also didn’t go perfectly. Batman plan, after all.

AN: Early post this week, and only one this week as I'll be unavailable for the rest of the week. Have fun folks!