"Wakey, wakey." Quentin's grin spread across his face as the blind assassin twitched back toward consciousness.
The man's eyelids fluttered beneath the harsh overhead light. He drew a shallow breath, then another, his expression tightening as a headache settled behind his eyes. It felt as though someone had wedged a steel vise around his skull and was slowly turning the handle. He groaned, swallowed against a dry throat, and tested the restraints securing his wrists behind the chair. The bindings held firm. He tried his ankles next, shifting his weight and listening to the faint scrape of the chair against the floor, but the legs had been secured as well. Whoever had tied him up had taken the time to do it properly.
"Ah," the assassin muttered. "Shit."
"Language. There are impressionable people about."
The assassin went still.
Quentin sat opposite him, comfortably settled in a chair that had probably seen better days, one leg crossed over the other. The locker room was dim beyond the pool of light surrounding them, its old wooden benches and dented metal lockers casting long shadows against the walls. Rain battered the building overhead, occasionally punctuated by a low rumble of thunder. There was no clock on the wall, no window within reach, and nothing in the room to suggest how long he had been unconscious. His head hurt, his limbs felt heavy, and the back of his neck throbbed whenever he moved. He had no idea how many people were in the building or how far he was from the gala.
He did, however, remember the fight.
The assassin's expression hardened as he looked at Quentin. His gaze lingered on the man's face, searching for some indication of who he was dealing with, before moving over the room and the restraints once more. He said nothing. Quentin watched the assessment with open amusement, allowing the silence to stretch while the prisoner tried to determine whether speaking would help him or make matters worse.
"So," Quentin began pleasantly, "what's your name?"
The assassin stared at him.
Quentin waited a moment, then tilted his head. "Nothing? Not even a first name? Come now, we're practically acquaintances. You tried to kill a man at a party, I interrupted you, and now we're spending some quality time together in a rather unpleasant room. I think that earns me at least an introduction."
The assassin remained silent.
Quentin's smile faded into a thoughtful frown. "We're not even properly into the interrogation yet, and you're already being difficult. I have to say, that's disappointing. I was hoping we could make this a civilized affair. Perhaps some coffee, a little conversation, a mutual exchange of professional courtesies." He glanced toward the door. "Unfortunately, I seem to be the only one interested in making friends."
Still nothing.
The prisoner had settled into the sort of silence Quentin recognized. It wasn't necessarily courage, nor was it proof of some extraordinary discipline. It was a decision, made by someone who believed that every word carried a cost and that refusing to speak was the only control he had left. Quentin had encountered men like him before. Some had been trained to endure pain. Others had convinced themselves that loyalty would protect them from the consequences of failure. The more intelligent ones understood that their captors wanted information and believed that withholding it would preserve their value.
The trouble was that Quentin had never been particularly fond of playing by the rules his opponents expected.
He leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees. His attention settled on the assassin's face, but his awareness extended beyond the man's expression and posture. Emotions were not simple switches that could be flipped at will, despite what the less disciplined among the gifted might believe. Fear, especially, was a complicated thing. Introduced too abruptly, it could overwhelm reason, trigger panic, or leave a subject so thoroughly distressed that meaningful conversation became impossible. Pushed too far, it could damage the very mind Quentin needed to question.
He and the others had learned that lesson through experience.
Their earlier attempts at emotional manipulation had been blunt instruments. They could intensify a feeling until it swallowed everything else, but doing so had been crude, wasteful, and dangerous. With practice, they had begun to understand the difference between creating an emotion and encouraging one that already existed. It was possible to take a person's unease and make it slightly harder to ignore, to allow suspicion to linger a little longer than it otherwise might, or to make the absence of certainty more uncomfortable without forcing the mind into a state of terror.
The process required patience and restraint. They could not simply reach into another person's mind and dictate every response without consequence, and Quentin had no intention of testing the limits of their ability on a prisoner who might know something useful. He wanted answers, not a broken man who could do nothing but scream.
So he began with something small.
He touched the assassin's nervousness and nudged it upward, no more than a fraction. The man had already awakened in an unfamiliar room, bound to a chair and confronted by a stranger who clearly knew more about him than he did about his captor. Under ordinary circumstances, that would have been enough to make anyone uneasy. Quentin merely made the discomfort a little more persistent, the sort of unease that kept a man aware of every scrape of a chair and every shift in the shadows.
The assassin's fingers flexed against his restraints.
Quentin noticed. He didn't react.
"Let's start again," he said. "Your name?"
The prisoner studied him for several seconds. "Why?"
"Because calling you 'the fellow who tried to strangle a banker' is terribly cumbersome, and I do value efficiency."
"Then call me whatever you like."
"Ah, so you can speak." Quentin's smile returned. "Excellent. I was beginning to worry the fight had knocked something important loose."
The assassin's jaw tightened. "You should have left me at the gala."
"And miss this delightful conversation? Perish the thought." Quentin leaned back. "Besides, you were trying to murder Randall Jeffries Jr. I imagine the authorities would have had a few questions for you, and I find myself rather curious about the answers. I thought I'd get a head start."
"You don't know anything."
"That's why I'm asking."
The response earned him another silence, but it was a different sort than before. The assassin had given him something to work with. He had not denied the attempt, nor had he asked whether Jeffries was alive. His attention had shifted toward the questions themselves, calculating which ones might be dangerous and which could be dismissed without consequence.
Quentin allowed the man's anxiety to rise another fraction, then left it there. He didn't want to drive him toward panic. He wanted the assassin to notice his own uncertainty, to become increasingly conscious of how little control he possessed over the circumstances.
"Who hired you?" Quentin asked.
"No one."
Quentin sighed. "That's a rather disappointing answer. You don't look like a man who spends his evenings strangling wealthy bankers for the sheer joy of it."
The assassin said nothing.
"Was it personal? Did Jeffries insult your mother? Refuse you a loan? Steal a particularly cherished childhood toy?" Quentin tapped a finger against his knee. "I'm willing to entertain almost any explanation, but I confess I'd prefer one that makes sense."
"You wouldn't understand."
"Try me."
The assassin looked away. For the first time, his expression showed something beyond calculated resistance. There was fear beneath the composure, though he was trying desperately to keep it contained. Quentin could feel it gathering around the edges of the man's thoughts, a tension that had been present since he regained consciousness and was now becoming harder for him to ignore. The prisoner did not know what Quentin was doing, and that uncertainty was more useful than a direct demonstration of power would have been.
Quentin studied him for another moment before changing direction.
"You were quite good at your job," he said. "I'll give you that. You got close to Jeffries, took him by surprise, and nearly finished the job before I walked in. Your disguise was convincing, too. I spoke with you earlier and didn't suspect a thing. That's a useful talent."
The assassin's expression barely changed, but his breathing eased for a moment. Praise was unexpected. It offered him a way to understand the conversation that did not involve immediate punishment, and Quentin watched as the man tried to decide whether the compliment was sincere.
"Unfortunately," Quentin continued, "you made a few mistakes. The first was attempting to kill your target in a room with only one exit and no clear escape route. The second was assuming that I would be easy to dispose of. The third was failing to account for what happens when a plan encounters an unexpected complication."
"You were lucky."
"Possibly. Luck is a wonderful thing. It tends to favor people who know what to do when it arrives." Quentin's smile sharpened. "But let's not waste time arguing about whose skill was greater. You failed, you're tied to a chair, and your employer is presumably waiting to hear whether the job was completed. That leaves us with a rather obvious question. What happens to you now?"
The assassin's gaze flickered toward the door.
"Ah," Quentin murmured. "There it is."
"What?"
"You're wondering whether your people are coming for you."
"I'm not wondering anything."
"Of course not." Quentin's tone remained conversational. "And I imagine the people who hired you are deeply concerned about your welfare. They'll turn the city upside down looking for you. Perhaps they'll even send flowers."
The assassin's mouth tightened. His fear had grown, though he was still managing to keep it beneath the surface. Quentin could have intensified it further, but he resisted the temptation. A sudden spike would accomplish little except remind the prisoner that something unnatural was happening. Better to let the man reach his own conclusions, then give him a reason to speak.
"You know what interests me?" Quentin asked. "You didn't seem surprised when I called you an assassin. You didn't ask what I wanted or threaten to have me killed. You woke up, assessed the room, and decided silence was your best option. That suggests training. A professional organization, perhaps. One with rules about what you can and cannot reveal."
The assassin's eyes narrowed.
Quentin noticed the reaction and filed it away. "Am I getting warmer?"
"You're wasting your time."
"Possibly. But I have a great deal of time, and you're the one with a headache." Quentin gestured toward the prisoner's head. "How is that, by the way? Still unpleasant? I imagine it is. You were rather enthusiastic about trying to put me through the floor."
The assassin tested his restraints again, more forcefully this time. The chair creaked beneath him. He stopped when the bindings failed to give, his breathing becoming slightly quicker.
Quentin felt the fear rise and held it at that level. There was no need to push harder. The prisoner was beginning to understand that his silence would not make the situation disappear, and the longer he remained in the room, the more questions he would have to answer for himself. Who had captured him? What did they know? Had the other operative escaped? Was Jeffries alive? Had the authorities been called? Every unanswered question was another uncertainty, and uncertainty was already doing much of Quentin's work for him.
"Let's make this easier," Quentin said. "You tell me who you work for, and I'll stop guessing. No more jokes about your mother, no more speculation about your employer's affection for you. Just a straightforward conversation between two professionals."
The assassin gave a humorless laugh. "You think you can scare me into talking?"
"No." Quentin's answer came without hesitation. "I think you're already frightened, and you're trying very hard not to show it. There's a difference."
The man's face went still.
Quentin did not smile this time. "You know what the worst part of your situation is? It's not that you're tied to a chair. It's not even that you failed. It's that you don't know what I intend to do with you, and you have no reliable way of finding out. You can refuse to answer, and that's your choice. But every minute you spend sitting here gives me another opportunity to discover something about you, while you learn absolutely nothing about me."
He let the words settle before continuing. "I'm not asking you to betray your friends for the pleasure of hearing yourself talk. I'm asking you to explain why you tried to kill a man in a crowded ballroom, how you managed to isolate him from his security, and whether anyone else is likely to die because your operation failed. Those are reasonable questions."
The assassin looked down at his bound hands. For the first time, the silence seemed less like a deliberate refusal and more like a man searching for an answer he could live with. Quentin could feel the conflict building: the instinct to protect his organization struggling against the fear of what might happen if he continued to withhold information. He eased the tension in one place and allowed it to gather in another, never pushing hard enough to overwhelm the man's ability to think.
"Who do you work for?" Quentin asked again.
The assassin swallowed. "The Assassination Bureau"
Quentin tilted his head. "The Assassination Bureau?"
"The Assassination Bureau." The words came out reluctantly, as though saying them aloud had already crossed a line the man had hoped to preserve. "I work for The Assassination Bureau. We take contracts. That's all you need to know."
"That's a start." Quentin kept his expression neutral, though the name immediately caught his interest. He had heard of organizations that traded in assassinations, but names alone were rarely enough to establish how much influence they possessed or who controlled them. "Who gave you the contract?"
"I don't know."
Quentin's brow lifted. "You expect me to believe an organization of professional killers sent you to murder one of the richest men in Metropolis without telling you who wanted him dead?"
"I was given the target and the terms. That's how it works. We don't always know who hires us."
"Convenient."
"It's the truth."
Quentin studied him. There was fear in the assassin's voice, but not the particular tension he would expect from someone inventing an answer under pressure. That did not make the statement unquestionably true; practiced liars could be difficult to read, and emotional manipulation was not a substitute for evidence. Still, the man seemed to believe what he was saying.
"Very well," Quentin replied. "You were hired to kill Randall Jeffries Jr. You were given the contract through Incognito, and you don't know who paid for it. What else were you told?"
"Nothing beyond the job."
"Nothing about why he needed to die? Nothing about what would happen afterward?"
"No."
"Was there a deadline?"
"Tonight."
"Were you instructed to make it look like an accident? A robbery? A personal dispute?"
The assassin hesitated.
Quentin noticed the pause but did not immediately press him. Instead, he let the man's anxiety rise slightly, giving the hesitation time to become uncomfortable. The prisoner shifted in his chair, his eyes moving toward the door again before returning to Quentin.
"We were told to complete the contract and leave," he said finally. "No complications. No unnecessary attention."
Quentin gave a soft laugh. "Well, you managed one of those. Now what's your name?"
The assassin's expression hardened, "incognito."
Quentin laughed, "How fitting."
"Let's talk about your partner," Quentin continued. "The one who made sure nobody heard us dismantling the bathroom. Who are they?"
"I don't know."
Quentin's smile disappeared. "You expect me to believe you were sent to kill Jeffries, but you don't know who was helping you?"
"I know who I was working with. I don't know their real name."
"Better. What do you call them?"
The assassin hesitated again. Quentin watched the conflict play out across his face, then carefully increased the unease that had already taken root. He didn't want the man to panic.
"Mindboggler," the assassin muttered.
"Mindboggler," Quentin repeated. "How appropriate. This assassination bureau has a great naming sense. Now what are her abilities?"
Incognito pressed his lips together.
Quentin waited.
The silence stretched long enough that the assassin began to shift uncomfortably in his chair. Finally, he exhaled through his nose and looked away.
"Psychic abilities," he admitted. "Mental influence. They can interfere with people's perceptions, make them overlook things, redirect their attention. She can form illusions and influence feelings. I've never seen them do anything more complicated than that."
Quentin's expression remained relaxed, but his attention sharpened. That explained the missing guards and the lack of witnesses. Shade had not needed to physically remove anyone from the area. A few carefully directed illusions and emotions might have been enough to convince Jeffries's security detail that their employer was safe, while the noise of the fight had simply failed to register as something requiring investigation. It was an elegant method, assuming the ability had the range and precision the assassin described.
"And the disguise?" Quentin asked. "Is that mindbogglers illusions at work or your abilities?"
"No. That's me."
"Ah. So you really can change your appearance."
The assassin said nothing, but the silence was confirmation enough.
Quentin leaned back and considered the implications. A shapeshifter and a mentalist, working together under the name of an assassination bureau, had been contracted to kill one of Metropolis's most influential bankers.
That's one hell of an assassination team.
The operation had been planned carefully enough to isolate the target, conceal the attack, and provide the assassin with a plausible identity. Yet the team had not accounted for Vey's intervention, and the failed attempt had forced them to improvise. The waitress's reaction came back to him. If she had been Mindboggler, she might have been monitoring the area from a safe distance, prepared to intervene if something went wrong. If she had been another operative, there might be more people involved than the two the prisoner had identified.
"How long have you worked with Mindboggler" Quentin asked.
"Three contracts."
"Only three? Then you don't know them particularly well."
"I know enough."
"Do you?"
The assassin's jaw tightened, but the fear had begun to outweigh his irritation. Quentin could sense the man struggling to decide how much he could safely reveal. He had already given up the name of his organization and the identity of his partner, and each answer had made the next one easier. He was still trying to preserve the appearance of control, but his silence no longer seemed as solid as it had when he first awakened.
Quentin leaned forward once more. "Was Mindboggler at the gala tonight?"
The assassin stared at him like he was an idiot. Of course she was there. Why would he ask that? What more does he want to know? Why hasn't she saved him? Why didn't she stop him at the gala?
Why? Why? WHY?
"Don't bother pretending you don't understand the question. I saw someone who reacted strangely when Jeffries emerged from the bathroom. A member of the staff, a waitress. She looked surprised, but she didn't show it. Then she walked away without saying a word. Was that Mindboggler?"
"What.." incognito was dizzy, "What the fuck are you doing to me?"
Quentin studied his face. He eased the emotional pressure slightly, giving the assassin room to believe that he could still answer selectively without being punished for every hesitation.
"I don't know what you'rere talking about incognito. " he said, "Let's try a different question. How were you supposed to get out?"
"Through the service corridor."
"Alone?"
The assassin hesitated.
Quentin waited, his expression patient.
"She was supposed to make sure the guards didn't interfere," the man finally admitted. "We were meant to meet outside the building."
"And if the job went wrong?"
"We were told to withdraw."
"Both of you?"
"Yes."
"Were you given a fallback location? A safe house? Another vehicle?"
"I don't know. She handled that."
Quentin nodded slowly. There it was again: a division of responsibility that left each operative with only part of the plan. The shapeshifter knew the target and the method of attack, while the mentalist controlled the environment and the escape. Neither necessarily knew who had commissioned the job, and perhaps neither knew the full extent of the operation. It was a sensible arrangement for an organization that valued compartmentalization. It was also deeply inconvenient for anyone trying to trace the contract back to its source.
"Did She have instructions if you were captured?" Quentin asked.
The assassin's expression changed. It was slight, but Quentin saw it. The man's fear spiked, and for a moment his attention seemed to turn inward, as though he were considering a possibility he had been avoiding since he woke.
"No," he said.
Quentin let the silence linger.
"I don't know," the assassin corrected, his voice quieter. "We weren't supposed to get caught."
"That's generally the expectation when one accepts a contract to murder someone." Quentin's smile returned, though there was little warmth in it. "But plans have a habit of failing. When they do, people tend to discover how much their employers value them."
The assassin looked down.
Quentin watched him carefully, recognizing the moment when fear stopped being an abstract possibility and became a personal concern. The man had been trained to think about completing the contract, not about what happened when he failed. Now he was restrained in an unfamiliar building, separated from his partner, and speaking to someone who had already demonstrated that ordinary intimidation would not work. He had no reason to believe his organization would rescue him, and every reason to wonder whether the people who hired Incognito would prefer him dead rather than risk exposure.
Quentin did not need to intensify that thought. The assassin had arrived there on his own.
"Let me ask you something," Quentin said, his voice softer now. "If I let you walk out of here, what would you do?"
The assassin lifted his head. "I'd leave."
"And then?"
"Disappear."
"Where?"
"Somewhere they can't find me."
"Who? Me, or the people who hired you?"
The man said nothing.
Quentin gave a small, understanding nod. "Both, then. You think you've failed your contract, and you don't know whether your employer will consider that failure a reason to replace you or a reason to eliminate you. You're worried about what happens if you talk, and you're worried about what happens if you don't. That's an unpleasant position to be in."
"You don't know anything about my position."
"No," Quentin agreed. "But I'm beginning to."
He rose from his chair and walked slowly around the room, giving the assassin time to follow him with his eyes. The prisoner shifted against his restraints, trying to keep Quentin in view, and the movement only seemed to remind him of how thoroughly he had been secured. Quentin stopped beside the table and rested one hand against its edge.
"I don't particularly care about the assassination bureau." he said. "You've helped me actually. But I need to know everything you know that right? Now that I'm involved I have the responsibility to learn as much as I can."
The assassin gave a reluctant nod.
"Good. Then we're going to continue this conversation until I have a clearer picture of who was involved, how the contract was arranged, and whether there are other people I need to worry about. You can help me with that, or you can keep guessing about what I know and what I intend to do. Either way, we're not finished."
Quentin returned to his chair and sat down, studying the prisoner for another long moment. The man's fear remained present, but it had settled into a more manageable state. He was thinking now rather than simply reacting, and that was precisely where Quentin wanted him. The answers had come not because the assassin's mind had been shattered, but because his carefully maintained silence had gradually become more difficult to sustain than the truth.
There was still much to learn. The contract's origin remained unknown, mind boggler was still somewhere in Metropolis. Most importantly, Quentin did not yet know whether Jeffries had been targeted for his banking interests, his personal relationships, or something that reached beyond the city's financial establishment. The attack might have been a private vendetta, a corporate maneuver, or the opening move in a much larger plan.
Quentin smiled at the assassin.
"Now," he said, "tell me everything you know about the people who hired you. Start with how the contract reached you, and don't leave out the details you think are unimportant. In my experience, those are usually the interesting ones."
****
"Jeffries!" Kieran beamed and brought Jeffries jr into a tight hug, "It's good to see you again." They both turned now facing the construction underway
There was noticeably more finished and a lot more workers. Actually it was safe to say there were double the workers than before.
"Looks like your hotel is going to be finished soon." Jeffries commented
"All thanks to your timely donation." Kieran's smile was blinding, "It looks like the continental metropolis will be open in just a few more weeks at this rate."
"And the assassins?" Jeffries asked
Kieran beamed once more, "It's only been a week, give it some time my friend."
Assassination bureau? Who cares about them. Jeffries can think all he wants about being targeted again but it won't happen.
If he can flip incognito and mind boggler along with their third meta friend then that would be great but them going after Jeffries? It won't happen.
Kieran smelled the air, it was a good time to be alive.