Chapter 1.2.13 — Lock 7

The Dionysus Club pulsed with music and strobe lights. The dance floor in the center pit undulated like waves, while other patrons watched from the bar or from tables and chairs around the outside. All around was a bastardized mix of industrial décor, purple neon, and palm trees.

Lock prowled the perimeter of the dance floor, scanning the crowd and listening to the chatter of security in his earpiece. All the while, he did his best to ignore the haze of boys, sweat, and cologne that his enhanced smell picked up. It was late Friday night—almost three in the morning—and he was counting down until the end of his shift.

The Dionysus Club was predominantly a place for normal people and occasionally low-level supers. Lock had been working there almost three years now, even before he worked for Gnosis…

He’d outgrown the place.

In fact, if his bosses knew the true extent of his strength, they’d probably let him go on the spot. Employing a Class One or Two super wasn’t uncommon, but it could be tricky to insure powerful supers for security details. Lock couldn’t imagine his bosses wanting to deal with that kind of trouble. Some of the security team already suspected, and it was only by Lock’s reputation and his relationship with the team that they stayed quiet.

All things considered, Lock had to move on.

A part of him knew that it was dumb to give up the money and that he should ride it out as long as he could, but Lock couldn’t stop thinking about what the VP of Gnosis had offered—

“Trouble by the bar. Spike-hair and chain gang,” Marcus said over the radio.

Lock was already on his way.

A fight was brewing at the back bar. Two guys around Lock’s age had squared up, both wearing the same out-of-style fashion Marcus had described. They were yelling in each other’s faces and moments away from a shoving match. Both were taller than Lock and outweighed him—when Lock first started bouncing, he might have cared.

Now, he consciously had to keep his strength in check.

Even without his danger sense, Lock could pick most supers out of a crowd just by body language. These two were just drunk assholes. Normal assholes.

Lock reached them just as Frosted-Tips grabbed Too-Many-Chains by the shirt. Lock grabbed them both by the back of the neck and shoved them down so that they were in a game-day huddle. Frosted-Tips struggled for a split second, but then both drunks went deathly silent as the realization set in that they couldn’t move.

“That’s enough,” Lock said sternly. He glanced back and saw Wayne and Jayce on their way over. “Now, on the count of three, we’re all going to stand up. And we’re all going to be calm and cool. One, two, three…”

Lock let them up slowly, and both men regarded him. Their anger at each other was quickly forgotten and replaced with confusion and disbelief. No doubt they didn’t expect to be man-handled so completely by someone smaller than them.

He met each of their eyes coldly, just in case liquor got the better of common sense. But there was no fight left in the men. They didn’t even complain when Wayne and Jayce escorted them out of the club.

Their friends whispered, though.

Lock tried not to acknowledge it, but he heard it clearly, even through the pulsing music.

“Did you see that?”

“... a super…”

“It’s okay.”

“...not natural…”

He looked past them to the bartender, Michelle. She nodded meekly and went back to mixing drinks.

Lock turned and went back to his rounds. He rubbed his upper arm to make sure his muscles weren’t crawling. Thankfully, they weren’t.

He had a feeling this would be his last night.

~

Sure enough, Gus, the head of security, called him back at closing.

Lock walked past the private back rooms and the owner’s lounge to the security office. It was tiny, like janitor’s closet tiny, and Lock resisted the urge to eye the corners. The last time he’d been back here was for his interview.

He waited to sit until Gus had shuffled around his desk. The Dionysus Club’s head of security was a weathered old-timer, his salt and pepper hair receding around decades-old scars where a drunk had smashed a beer bottle over his head. Gus’s knuckles were pitted, presumably from getting his own shots in.

“You did good today,” Gus leaned back and both the old man and the chair groaned.

Lock stared straight ahead. His boss wasn’t the kind of guy to offer praise without a caveat. The rest of his statement hung somewhere in the room.

“But I, uh… There ain’t no easy way to say this… Lachlan, I got to let you go.”

Lock nodded.

He tried thinking of something to say, but now that the moment was here, Lock had nothing. What was there to say? Lock couldn’t hide that he was a super anymore. No point in giving Gus any shit for a decision that wasn’t his to make.

Lock took out his earpiece and rolled it around in his fingers before setting it on the desk.

Then he met his boss’s eyes. Gus looked genuinely torn up. Lock hadn’t expected that.

“Sorry…” Lock cleared his throat. “Sorry, if anything came back on you.”

“Nah,” Gus replied, waving the concern away. “If you need work, I know a few places that are looking. Most are on the up-and-up and won’t care that you’ve got powers.”

Again, the boss’s fatherly concern made Lock pause. He’d been ready to get up and walk out, but now, here Lock was, about to defend his life choices.

Lock tried to hide a smirk. “It’s okay. I’ve got something else lined up.”

Gus’s eyebrows raised. “Oh... Something like that?” Lock nodded, and Gus shook his head, adding, “Bouncing’s better.”

“How do you figure?” Lock tapped his head, indicating Gus’s scars.

“Better scarred, then dead. Not too many chances of that in here.”

“I can take care of myself.” Lock knew how stupid the phrase sounded, but he had powers his boss couldn’t even dream of.

Gus scoffed and itched his scar. “You probably can. You probably can... Well, in any case, uh, good luck. Let me know if you change your mind. I mean it.”

Lock nodded, then stood up to go. As much as he didn’t mind the old man, Gus wasn’t his dad, and Lock wasn’t in the mood for an extended lecture.

Gus leaned over the table and offered his hand. Lock paused and shook it.

“Take care of yourself, Lachlan.”

Lock nodded quickly and left. He walked out, hands stuffed in his pockets, not slowing to acknowledge the few coworkers left cleaning up.

It shouldn’t have been this hard to leave. There was nothing left here for him, but it still sucked.

~

Lock was halfway back to the apartment before he got a hold of himself. The night air was cool and crisp, but it barely helped.

His mind drifted back to his impromptu meeting with one of the VP’s of Gnosis. Back to the job offer…

The one he couldn’t refuse.

Even if Lock had qualms about the job description, and he wasn’t sure he did, he couldn’t turn down the money. Bouncing for clubs didn’t exactly pay well, and even working freelance security wasn’t as good as Lock hoped it would be. It was enough to pay his way and send extra back home to his sister, but it was never going to change anything.

If Lock would’ve stayed in school, maybe he could’ve gotten a job in the Gnosis labs. There had been a sliver of a chance he could’ve passed, but in the end he’d taken the easy way out and became a test subject for Gnosis.

It paid alright enough, and so far, he’d been lucky. He hadn’t had any adverse reactions to the mutagens, unlike some… If Lock kept being lucky, one day he could save up and get a place of his own. One day.

But now Gnosis was offering the kind of money that would change his life and his sister’s life tomorrow. The kind of money that most people would do horrible shit for.

He just had to do some horrible shit.

The closer Lock got to his apartment, the more certain he was. He’d put off taking the job, but now he had no excuse.

~ ~ ~