Chapter 6
The port finally came together to fuse with his skin so that he wouldn’t have to worry about it becoming loose on his stub and moving weird. It took many 3D printed models, configuration for the tech inside the damn thing, and easing out the metal and mesh so that it didn’t irritate his still sensitive nerves. The arm was piecing together like he wanted, it was just taking too long. For him it was anyhow, when really all of this was happening in a matter of days.
He couldn’t remember the last time he’d been this busy designing something for his own personal use. It was his own damn arm, so of course he poured a lot of time and research into it, but the excitement he felt was both a relief and a curse. His happiness was mania and just because he was smiling and in a good mood didn’t mean he wouldn’t shoot people. He was too busy to care about basic things and Limbani had to keep reminding him to eat or sleep. Ulysses read constantly from old and new technological research papers and thick program books while simultaneously adding and removing ideas from what he wanted his arm to be. Everything had to work with the Wakandan mining tool, that was the basis of it, and because the rest of the world was ignorant and blind to the actual advanced truth of the hidden country, he had to recollect from memory and old private texts he kept locked up on his property in Germany.
Going back and forth across northern Europe was tiring his men out, he kept pushing through it and when needed, crunched his pills to dull the sensations in his stubbed arm. He wasn’t stretching as much as he should’ve; he was often sitting or pacing or bent over papers or on a computer, or on his phone trying to correlate between translators in Korea, Japan, or China about parts. Yasheen sent reports in emails or small texts about his workers in Africa. The scrapping hadn’t completely stopped, but it was nothing like it was earlier in the year. Ulysses contemplated retiring it now that his bank accounts were full, but work was what made the man.
He had to take care of Junior first. The man had it coming more than anyone right now.
It’d been a couple of days since Ulysses dropped in on old Sevigny. There had still been no update about the team coming together to help and Ulysses was growing impatient. Of course he had to admit to himself, their last couple of meetings were tense and miscorrelated in priorities. He remembered the mutant once being pretty driven about getting as much money as possible, pasionate even. Ever since he’d gotten ill, he was distant to the work.
But he was healed now; that’s where a shit ton of Ulysses’ loan went. Shit got tense for a while, but Sevigny did come through and paid off more than what he was given. He was useful again, but the underlings was what Ulysses wanted figured out.
During his current stay in London, Ulysses and Limbani scoured the city to draw up a plan for the “heist.” It was destruction more than anything; he wanted Junior to hurt.
Ulysses checked his phone for the hundredth time, cursing when there was still no message from Beau. He pressed the call button, bringing the phone to his ear while he looked around the busy streets, eyes obscured by large reflective sunglasses. It rang twice before there was an answer; it wasn’t even that, more of a strained sigh and what he presumed was a ‘yes?’ Beau’s accent came through only when he was stressed or tired.
“Are ja sick again, frog?”
“De toi, maybe.”
“Easy,” Ulysses growled into the phone. “I need a simple yes or no about waterboy and the other one.” He paused. Beau paused. They were both a no, apparently.
“I haven’t asked Remedy, yet,” Beau said.
Limbani had walked out towards Ulysses carrying a to-go coffee. He handed it to him, realized his mistake, and decided to hold it for his boss. Ulysses put the phone on his shoulder and took his coffee anyway, looking awkward but not caring. The two men walked back towards a running black SUV.
“With dis day and age? Send her a text if you can’t call, or an email if you can’t text, or a message in a bottle if you can’t type shit. It’s one question, spit it out-”
“I can’t pull her out of her life until your framework plan actually grows skin.”
“It’s done, but I need your people,” Ulysses groaned low and took an odd drink from his coffee. Limbani opened the driver door for him. He set his drink in the holder then hopped into the leather. Limbani shut it and jogged around the front.
“I have more than enough money to compensate anyone’s time, though honestly I don’t give a shit ‘bout her home life. Lookit- dere are some parts I need from Korea anyhow,” he said, recalling that Beau told him she moved there. Personally, he thought it a strange go switch of lives. Trading the dingy Victorian for something like Seoul- that was a shift.
“But I can’t pick ‘em up ‘till dis one douche gets back to me.” Ulysses was situating a yellow notepad with unlegible scribbling on it. There were dates and prices everywhere.
“He’s taking for fucking ever for just a couple simple parts; anyway, go do that for me and ask jour girl on a lunch break or whatever.”
He didn’t give Beau time to respond and hung up, shoving the phone into his shirt pocket.
“Why is he lollying?” Limbani asked after he shifted into drive and pulled out into traffic.
“He’s too attached to his lackeys,” Ulysses said and drank his coffee. “At least to die one lady, anyway.” He tried to recall her again, but it’d been a while since he last saw her. Still all he remembered was her hair and maybe her voice. When Beau said she had moved all the way to Korea,
“Dave said he almost killed her,” Limbani said. Ulysses eyed him from the side and Limbani glanced at him while trying to pay attention to traffic. He pointed at his right cheek.
“The bullet grazed her face. Said it wasn’t too bad, but it any further over, we would’ve been burning her body that night too.” Ulysses stared ahead. Beau never mentioned she got hurt, not that Ulysses cared whether she did or not. It would explain the hesitation though. He’d known Beau for years, never heard of all these people, and now that they were out in the open, for some reason, Beau was rather protective of Remedy.
“Maybe she’s his love child or something,” Limbani muttered after a bit and shrugged.
“Maybe,” Ulysses said. “Can’t remember the dame’s face.” Absentmindedly he reached into his coat pocket and pulled out a crumpled picture of his past lover. Ultron and the Avengers destroyed the other pictures left of her on the ship. This one managed to survive his sweat soaked shirt that day, but the edges were worn and there was a speck of blood on her face. He heaved a sigh at the poor condition it was in; he missed her, but in the back of his head he knew it’d been too long.
Limbani noticed the personal moment, but said nothing.
Ulysses’ phone started ringing and when he checked the number he huffed. It was the part seller from Germany that he’d been waiting on. He sounded apprehensive on the phone, Ulysses recognized it as stalling and took it to mean the parts weren’t properly made yet. No. That wasn’t going to cut it. He needed those parts yesterday. He needed his arm tested now. It was almost done. Forget the waiting. He was going to pay another visit and his words were cruelly promising.
Yelling, pain, pills, flying. Jet lag was everywhere, but had yet to drag the man down into a sleep longer than four hours at a time. Limbani felt it, so while he slept on the plane despite being the only other pilot Ulysses trusted, their temp hire sat up front with a bewildered Dave who was not used to sitting in the cockpit. The fear of heights glistened in his large eyeballs. He was terrified, though he wouldn’t admit it. Even with Ulysses’ mocking. He didn’t know why he chose to fly to Korea right after Germany. It was a long ass flight. His men were tired, he was tired, but he could not sleep. Everytime he did, he never dreamt, or his arm woke him up, or his mind just kept reeling everything back around Ultron. He focused on his prosthetic, his excitement driving him awake to see it through. It was almost done, he just needed touch ups, a few last pieces, and a couple of tests. He didn’t tell Beau he’d be in the country, even though he might reach it before the mutant did. The flying was taking a big effect on his men. Ulysses was handling it, but everytime he looked over at Limbani it reminded him he needed to slow down just a bit. Just for one night. That was it.
After one stop, they landed the next day in the junkyard much to the temp pilot’s confusion. Ulysses offed him and instructed his men to have at it until tomorrow night, when they’d meet his contact and engineers to test his arm.
As soon as they hit the suite in the city, Limbani claimed a room and never left. The other men jumbled together trying to discern broken Korean to Dutch or English, finally decided on a tour guide to translate everything, then left to enjoy what the nightlife had to offer. Ulysses tried to rest again, but he couldn’t. He ran over the designs for his arm. He got too excited, but couldn’t speed the hours up. He stalked Junior again, he brought back the framework for his attack in London, trying out different positions for his men to take- though there wasn’t much to work with. On the crumpled yellow notepad he had names written down to positions, who were runners, who were drivers, who was the fallman.
Beau’s team was half fleshed out. Min, Zeke, and Beau had their jobs. Slate was a question mark, but his name was also heavily crossed out. Remedy was a question mark. Ulysess paused and for some reason, absentmindedly put another one down next to her name. He peered out the glass windows, over the city covered in a red glowing sunset, loud and busy. Somewhere, turned into a normal busybody, the woman he couldn’t remember was around. He dozed off unexpectedly, but this time he dreamt of Die Senuwee. He heard the music, felt it thumping through his bones, sitting in his chair looking across from him. Everything was green and blurry. He saw her outline and bleeding face. It was just a small cut.
“He’ll fix it,” she said. Her voice muffled a little. “He has to fix it.”
“He did,” Ulysses said. He went to reach out to her face, to wipe the blood off, but he paused. He was holding out his left hand. He woke up trying to move it and was slightly surprised it wasn’t hurting this time.
The men didn’t party too hard, but Ulysses walked out of his room that morning to a couple of shy ladies in tight dresses hurrying out of the suite. They ran into room service at the same time, but the service didn’t question anything and dished out breakfast on the large table and left. Ulysses was by himself for a moment, drinking coffee, devouring the sweet breads, and catching up with the news when Limbani sluggishly dragged himself into the room. His black hair was a mess and drool was dried to the corner of his mouth. He sat down hard in a chair, stacked his plate, poured himself some coffee, and slouched down munching on a slice of toast.
“Ja good?” Ulysses asked, smiling at the corner of his mouth.
“Uh huh,” Limbani muttered, nodding his head. He hadn’t slept like that since they left Namibia. The day went by too slow for Ulysses with how impatient he was. While the other men slept he and Limbani tried out the city for a while, visiting the markets and dropping by an old contact who dealt with fresh fish. She was shocked to see him and blushed while she waited for him to plant a kiss on her cheek.
“Mister Klaue you always bring good business when you visit,” she spoke to him. He understood bits and pieces, but enough to carry the conversation. She did a double-take at his arm and looked at him in shock. He hated that look.
“ Not all business is good ,” he tried to say. He grinned at her reaction and lightly patted her shoulder, saying he was okay and the fucker was dead. Her lounge wasn’t open that early, and though she insisted they could have drinks on the house Ulysses felt it better that he didn’t start that early. She doted on him, that he could come back whenever he wanted and not worry about anything. He and Limbani stretched the day out with other visits before regrouping at Busan. He checked in on Beau, but the old man didn’t reply for some time and when he did, all he said was he was in Korea. Ulysses debated about bringing up Remedy, decided against it, fidgeted, then decided to hell with it anyway.
I figured. Wasn’t what I was asking about.
She gets off at night. It’ll be late when I let you know. Your contact has yet to send a number or address. Who am I waiting on?
Ulysses grit his teeth at the intentional misdirection and change in conversation. Was it really too much to walk into a workplace and ask to speak with someone? Would she had sent him away because of it? Fine. Ulysses decided to wait for later if that’s how personal the Frenchman was going to be.
There is no name. You’ll know when they send you Korean gibberish.
He didn’t get a reply and didn’t tell him he was already there, waiting about like an impatient father in the waiting lobby, for his parts to be ready and for him to finally get his arm. But time finally passed. The men were rested, ready to go. The city glowed with life and culture; though the big businesses were mostly done for the day, he showed up surprising the engineers before they could go home from their shift. It would be graveyard hours tonight. He smiled at the nervous tension he created walking into the building and clapped his hands together, excited. When he started throwing orders about in English the small man with round glasses stuttered the translations. Ulysses’ men had brought his prosthetic and a few other setups from the Dassault while their engineer hosts were careful to provide exactly what Ulysses paid them to make. And while he stood down there, watching while they pieced the inside of his fake arm together, his contact stated that Beau was on the way with someone else. Ulysses paused for a second and grinned.
“When they get here send them both down,” His heart was pumping, watching the blue lights blink and whirl rapidly. The canon responded with test prompts, never fully activating but it was glowing. Ulysses let one of the engineers assist him with his port. It remained in place the past two days with hardly a slip. They tested the buttons, the connections, making sure it timed instantly with his arm. There couldn’t be a delay, he’d throw a fit if there was one.
He waited for someone to get the truck when he heard Beau address him. He turned at first to respond, but his eyes hit her too soon. Bundled hair and eyes wide, terrified and trying to hide it. As harsh as the lights were, she had a soft glow about her. Doll. She was a doll. Her features were too gentle, but it was her lips he couldn’t stop looking at. A favorite instantly, his body felt weird, like a tickling that started in his chest and ran through his stomach on down. Her wear was casual in a dark blue sweater over skinny jeans. Her hair was up in the same way he remembered. It should’ve been those lips. Why didn’t he remember those.
He heard Beau talking to him, but it took Ulysses a couple of seconds to respond. Remedy was also staring back at him, her gaze easily read as fear. This was perfect. His arm was done, the frog was here to see it, and where was the fun in showing off if there wasn’t a pretty lady to boast in front of? He grinned at Beau.
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The success of his prosthetic fueled his confidence, exciting him to a height he hadn’t been at in a couple years. Being able to control the fingers was something else entirely and his mood rubbed off on his lackies. The employees relieved. He caught the hesitant gaze in Beau’s eyes after showing how powerful it was. And to his personal delight, the fear faded from Remedy’s eyes and were replaced with curiosity. That was a good start for chit-chat. She wanted to know about it, about him. It gave him an extra boost.
After that and their quick run in Busan for take-out, all he wanted to do was talk to her, but Beau blocked every chance. They didn’t even ride in the same vehicle to the junkyard. On the Dassault he wanted to pour a drink, sit across from her and try and make a different impression. Remedy fell out sometime after take off anyhow, though whether she was really resting was debatable. She twitched and woke a couple times an hour. She wasn’t comfortable on the plane; he couldn’t blame her. It was a long flight with a bunch of people who once tried to kill her.
Another thing was that he had never seen Beau carry such warning in his eyes- but Ulysses wasn’t one to back off something, or someone, just because of overprotective daddy glares. While he and a couple of the men played cards, he stole glances at her sleeping face resting against Beau’s shoulder. It went on like that for a while until only Ulysses, Beau, and the other two pilots were awake.
“Here,” Ulysses whispered and set down a half full whiskey glass on the small table beside the Frenchman. He’d noticed the man loved to drink; it was easy to pour it into him. Ulysses sipped his own glass and sat a small distance away, crossing one leg over at the knee. He was going to end up pissing the man off before the plane landed that morning. On purpose. With the roundabout phone calls he and Beau had about this whole team building thing, it was more than warranted, Ulysses felt. Beau saw the prosthetic’s power, he had little room to work with concerning anything now. Ulysses was in control, on top of things, but it didn’t stop Beau from being on guard.
Beau didn’t touch his drink.
“What is she to you?” Ulysses motioned his glass to Remedy without his eyes leaving Beau’s face. The older man huffed, aggravated. He didn’t want to talk about this, he didn’t want to explain whatever it was he was hiding. Ulysses figured adding anything else might get him started.
“And why Korea of all places?” he scrunched his face. “Popular choice for studyin’ abroad for students , but immigrating?”
“You don’t have to understand it,” Beau replied while staring at the whiskey. He was picking his words first before talking. Remmy probably couldn’t be in the vicinity for the man to just drink himself silly and spill everything.
“She’s lived there before with Slate,” Beau said. Ulysses’ nose crinkled. Goddamit- he’d assumed Slate and Remedy were really bad partners. He did not want to hear that there was more history to the two of them. His stomach felt weird, his chest felt a little tight. He didn’t realize he clenched his fingers around his drink.
Beau paused. Finally, he took a small sip of the whiskey and stared right at Ulysses.
“Don’t touch her.”
Ulysses snorted into his drink, raising his brows and sat up. There it was. There was the bar from the frog, the threat- the invitation.
“Now, now, Beau...we’re on die same side again, ja? I won’t hurt a hair on her badly mussed head.” He chuckled and glanced at her. Beau curled his fingers around his glass and dust began to part off him, slowly swirling about as it flaked off his skin. He glared at Ulysses with his glassy eyed look, the look he gave over and over to prove that was strong enough to stand against the armsman, even though in the end, he ended up doing what Ulysses said anyway. This time, he was really trying, he was genuinely angry and protective and trying to lay out rules.
“A job is a job,” Beau said. “And yet I saw the look. I saw your eyes. I’ll let you know now- Remedy can’t stand you, Klaue,” he whispered harshly and leant forward. Ulysses grit his teeth.
“She won’t get used to you. Nothing about you is good and she is too determined to leave crime life- she goes home after this.”
“Or what, you’ll kill me? Is that where you’re heading with this?” Ulysses grinned like an asshole and drank from his glass. He didn’t like being told he couldn’t do things, couldn’t talk to people, especially when in this point in time he’d personally employed Beau. Giving him and his lackeys work. Giving him money.
“We both know how hard that would be,” Beau confessed. “But, you already have a woman; don’t insult her memory.”
Ulysses knew who he was talking about. He looked past Beau to the cockpit. He could see the sunrise, but he couldn’t feel the prospect of a new day that it usually brought. In Africa watching the sunrise was always a norm and yet it was always beautiful. Ulysses almost reached for the picture. Shit, Beau got a hit, he didn’t have weight to pull out heartbreak. There was no room for his small ass feet to tread on that subject, but when he looked down at Remedy there was a twinge of guilt for feeling attracted to her and it nearly stopped him in his tracks.
Just nearly.
“Fine,” Ulysses muttered low and looked Beau in the eye. “But don’t you ever bring that back up again or I will smash a gotdamn, gaping hole through the back of your head.” The Frenchman smiled.
“I won’t screw with your heart if you don’t screw with mine,” he warned. Remedy kept sleeping. The tingling in Ulysses’ chest didn’t go away and he was more frustrated than earlier. His mood was dying. Beau didn’t want him to have anything to do with her, using guilt trips and heartbreak to try to deter him.
Beau was also a bit right- a job was a job. He needed to finish his deal with the Churchill. Then after that, who knows. He couldn’t help that he was attracted to her, even if he wanted to. Beau’s words replayed in his head; if she wanted to go home then fine, she could go home. Klaue had a fucking plane and he’d buy more if he wanted to.
His mind was made up; he lied straight to the old man’s face. For now he’d back off, but there were still possibilities in the future.
“Back to business, then,” Ulysses said darkly. He looked away from Beau, stood and walked towards his computer at the back. He opened and closed his prosthetic’s fingers.