It's Who You Know

Part One of the X Chronicles

by Smoot

Chapter 4

Quentin looked at himself in the mirror, cocked his head to one side, grinned, and nodded to himself. Dressed in black jeans, black military-issue boots, a black tank top that hugged his upper body, and a black leather duster, complete with the completely useless flap in the back, he looked ready to take on something. 

He pulled his hair back out of his face, carefully opened the door, and stepped out. He quietly closed it after him and then listened intently. The sounds of a television set came from the main room, and the flickering lights from the same direction seemed to confirm that idea. 

He stopped and tried to recall what he had noticed about the room in his first day in there. The chair facing the TV set was facing the front of the building, but the door leading to the hall was in the back, so if he didn't draw attention to himself, he should be able to sneak out easily. It was just a matter of concentration and not making any stupid mistakes. 

He carefully took slow step after slow step into the main room. Sure enough, Remy was sitting there, one leg folded on top of the other, his chin resting on his fist propped up on the armrest of the chair. Like Quentin had recalled, his back was to the young man, giving him a window of opportunity. 

He inched his way to the door, his eyes fixed on Remy, looking for any signs that he had been found out. When he reached the door he took a deep breath and let it out slowly and silently. That part was over. Now for the next part. 

Reaching into the interior pocket of his coat, he drew out a small can with a long tube coming out of the top, hooked slightly at the end. A run-of-the-mill oil can. Quentin looked it over in his hand, grinning. Taking no chances... he said to himself. 

He put three drops on each hinge, not enough to drip onto the floor, but not so little as to have no effect. He put the top back on the end of the tube and put it back in his coat. 

He placed his right hand firmly on the doorknob, turned it all the way to the left, and pulled the door towards him. As he opened, he took one stealthy step to the right, making sure his body would block any of the slight sounds that might catch the ear of the Cajun who at the moment was oblivious to the entire proceedings going on behind him. 

He stepped through, putting his left hand on the outer doorknob and then removing his other hand from the doorknob facing the apartment. Keeping the same amount of pressure on the doorknob that he had on the other side, keeping it from slipping and possibly making a noise, he carefully pushed the door closed, taking careful notice of the hole on the side of the doorframe that the locking mechanism of the doorknob would extend into and being cautious to stop the door so it would close without making any friction noise. It sealed perfectly, shutting him off from the apartment. 

Remy sat calmly in his chair, a coy grin on his face, twirling a key ring with two keys on it on his finger, still in the same position he was earlier. 

Behind him, the door opened. Quentin stood in the doorway, his hand still stretched out on the doorknob, his expression somewhere between annoyance and mild regretful respect. "I need those, you know." 

"Oui, I know," Remy said, his expression not changing, his body position still unmoving. 

Quentin stood in the doorway before, with a sigh, he closed the door and walked up to Remy's chair and snatched at the keys. Remy deftly flicked them up into the air with a remarkable dexterity to his movements. Quentin tried to grab them while they were in the air, but Remy quickly reached up and poked them away towards the TV, and then back at him when Quentin grabbed at them again. 

The dance kept up for about twenty more seconds until Quentin erupted with a scream of frustration and stormed over to the counter. After grabbing a Pepsi off the counter, he turned and saw Remy shaking with laughter. 

"Can I have my keys now?" he asked, placing a hand on his hip and leaning forward. 

"Where y' goin'?" Remy asked, regaining his composure. 

"I don't have to tell you everything," Quentin retorted. 

"When y' gonna be back?" 

"See previous answer," Quentin replied coldly. 

Remy tapped the keys in the air with his fingers, keeping them aloft and only touching them with one finger at a time. "I'm not leavin' de door open f'r you, y'know." 

"I'll sneak in," Quentin said. 

"Y'any better at doin' dat than you are at sneakin' out?" Remy asked, cracking a smile despite himself. 

Quentin set his jaw, and if Remy hadn't known any better, he would have sworn the kid growled at him. "Look, can I just go? Please?" 

Remy looked at him. "Aren't you dressed a bit weird f'r a night on de town?" 

Quentin looked at him dumbly. "This coming from the man with bright pink body armor underneath three coats in his closet?" 

Remy turned back to the television. "Point," he conceded unhappily. 

"Okay, so can I have my keys? I won't be late. Remember, you've got that meeting tonight, so what should it matter what time I drag in? You'll probably be out anyway." 

Remy considered this, and then tossed the keys over his shoulder, letting Quentin try and track them down. Then he just leaned back as Quentin's footsteps retreated back past the door and it drifted close behind him. He waited for a few seconds, and then grinned as the door slid open again. 

"Wallet?" Quentin asked sharply. 

Grinning ear to ear, Remy tossed it back, letting it land in Quentin's outstretched hand. With a grunt, the teenager did an abrupt about-face and stormed off into the hallway, slamming the door shut forcefully behind him. 

He waited until he was halfway down the hallway before breaking out into a dead run, worried that he had lost too much time already. He tucked his wallet into the back pocket of his jeans, rounded a corner, and came to a dead stop in front of a door at the end of the hallway. He fished in his pocket and then pulled out a small key. It fit the door, he pushed it open, and then closed it behind him once he crept into the room. 

The room was bare. No furniture, no curtains on the three windows, no wallpaper, no carpet, not even a light in the ceiling. Quentin jogged lightly over to the second window and grunted as he pushed it up and open. 

He slid out of the window and onto the black iron fire escape, careful to close the window after him. Not bothering with the steps, he climbed down the side of it, not making a lot of noise. One good thing about fire escapes is that a lot of them are a lot more secure than you'd think they are. 

He dropped the final ten feet to the ground and ran back further into the alley that he landed in, running until he came across a heap of garbage, ranging from old Pepsi bottles to trash bags to the hood of an old car. Quentin quickly started pushing things out of the way until he got a glimpse of shiny metal underneath the heap. He then began freeing the object, working until he had successfully revealed a motorcycle. Not the battered Harley-Davidson sitting out next to Remy's sleek one out front. A 1998 issue Sportstar 1200 XE, polished so well that he could see his reflection in it. Clumped around the bottom of the Harley was sheets of plastic that had been covering the bike to keep it safe from the trash hiding it. 

He swept a path for himself out of the trash, straddled the motorcycle, and hit the starter, letting the bike purr for a moment before putting his other leg on the edge of the bike and letting it carry him out of the alley. 

He kept time with a 1996 Miata, which he was pretty sure was the car he needed to tail. It pulled up to a parking garage, and Quentin quickly swerved onto a side road and pulled onto the sidewalk to avoid being seen. 

Three men and one woman got out of the car and walked inside the garage. Quentin had seen two of them before. One of them was tall, muscular, and had short black hair trimmed neatly all around. 

The other was a woman, a tall, graceful woman, with long blonde hair and a powerful hint to her walk, and Quenitn remembered seeing her get off a plane earlier in the week, with that same person by her side. He hadn't thought much about it, but he kept seeing her, including once going into the mansion of the man that had broken his family. She had made his "enemies" list on the spot. 

And now he was stalking her, it seemed. Shrugging, he got off the Harley and chained it to a lamp post to keep it safe. Then he carefully set out following the two of them. 

The two people he had recognized walked throught the main entrance of the parking garage and made a quick left, going for the elevators, Quentin reasoned. He kept out of sight for the next fifteen minutes, letting them get to their destination, he hoped. Then he tried a plan of his, doubting it would work. 

First he removed the trench coat and laid it underneath a bush, out of sight. Then, he walked up to the man on the left, a tall and obviously muscular man with sharp angular features and a blond crew cut that Quentin wouldn't have been caught dead with. "Excuse me, sir, could you spare some change for a poor bugger on the streets?" 

"No," came a cold, flat reply. 

"I do a trick for you instead, then, you would like that. Watch." He waved both hands on front of the man's face. "Nothing in my hands, see? Completely empty. Now pay close attention. Without reaching into my pants, or shirt, I will do a trick and produce something that will amaze, astound, shock, and confound you." He started flailing around drunkedly, waving his arms in the air and adding some Ace Ventura-like body English to the whole mix. After a complicated jig, he said, "Now, prepare to be dazzled! Nothing in my hand, but now, it's darting out to poke you in the eye," and he promptly did just that. 

The second man was caught unaware for all of three seconds, when Quentin darted over, rammed his boot down onto the other man's foot, and then followed up with a quick jab to the throat. 

The one thing that Quentin didn't think to factor in was a quick recovery time from the first man. His mistake was realized when a fist smacked across the back of his skull. 

Quentin staggered forward, stars flashing in his vision, but he'd been in too many brawls to let one punch get him down. A quick back kick to the gut would slow down the annoyance behind him. 

The man caught his leg handily and held it there for a second, a laugh escaping his throat. Quentin hung there for a moment, one leg on the ground, the other out behind him, and then jumped up in the air. He landed lightly on the tips of his fingers and absorbed the shock of the ground easily, and then shoved off again. In mid-air, his other boot slammed into the man's nose. 

His foot was released, and he tucked into a ball to roll to his feet. As he uncurled, he instinctively shot out of fist in front of him, playing a hunch. His hunch was right, but his aim was off. Slightly. 

His fist was extended directly into the man's crotch. Quentin held it there for a minute, and then, smiling ear to ear, drilled it upward viciously, eliciting a cry of pain from the man. He dropped, holding his crotch, moaning. Quentin rolled onto his back, rocked back on his shoulders, and then used his legs to spring up into a defensive crouch. 

He stayed lightly on the balls of his feet, wondering where the man went. The road around him was barren. He looked around tensely, a few beads of sweat dripping down off his hair onto the sidewalk, his breath coming silently and in strong deep breaths. 

Then, with no warning, he sprang forward and rolled onto one knee, looking behind him. He saw the man standing there, his fist inches from the ground, his stance that of a trained fighter, his eyes on Quentin. A small trickle of blood was coming from his nose. Quentin looked at it and grinned. 

"You're good," the man said calmly, straightening up. 

Quentin stayed down and said nothing, just regaining his breath. 

"We could use a man like you on our side," the man stated, walking forward peacefully. "You're young, and you've got spunk. With some professional training, you'd go far." 

Quentin's eyes were on the man's lower body, never flickering up to his face. 

"Well, kid? What do you say?" he asked, standing over Quentin. 

Quentin watched his legs, not looking up at all. Then, quietly, so the man had to make an effort to hear the words, the teenager simply said, "Bite me." 

A moment of palpable silence passed. 

The back leg shifted ever so slightly, and Quentin snapped an open palm up instinctively, almost letting a grin form on his lips when the sound of flesh smacking flesh reached his ears. He looked up, where the man above him had a look of shock on his face. Quentin merely cocked his head to once side and said, "But if I can catch your punch without even looking, maybe I'm not the one who needs professional training." 

With that, he pushed off and rammed his shoulder into the stomach of his opponent and simultaneously pulled the other way, flipping the man over his shoulder and into the ground with a loud thud. 

Quentin took a step back and waited for the man to get back up. He knew a simple move like the one he just used couldn't put someone out for more than a short moment. 

The blond man got to his feet, wiping a bit of the blood off his upper lip. He opened his mouth to say something, but then decided against it and started circling with the youngster. The tense dance continued for almost three minutes, at which point Quentin charged forward, stupidly telegraphing a running lariat. The assassin ducked it easily and brought up his knee hard towards Quentin's gut. 

Quentin saw it coming and flipped over the attack and hooked an arm around the man's upper leg, swinging him over with him. When they came to a stop, Quentin was standing over the man, his arm still locked around the leg. 

"It is with much dismay that I tell you that I can no longer continue this little dance," Quentin said, his eyes burning into the man's. "I have to make use of the lavatory." 

"What?" 

A crushing right hand to the temple knocked the man out cold. "I have to take a piss, you uncultured moron," Quentin said sharply, knowing that it would fall on deaf ears. 

After circling back to his bike and grabbing his trench coat, the teenager was on the move inside the complex, running for the stairwell, his body a little sore from being thrown around, but feeling better than it had for a long while. He took the steps to the top floor, and then came to a stop at the door, making sure he was perfectly, composed, and then reached into the pocket of his jeans. 

Retrieving a flathead screwdriver, he wedged a windowpane out of the glass next to him and propped it up against the railing. Then, carefully, he climbed up on the three-inch-wide platform now accessible, put all his weight on the balls of his feet, and jumped out into the air and towards the building. 

His hands smacked onto the coarse texture of the wall and created enough friction to keep him there, out of sight. Slowly, one hand by one hand, he crept across the outer surface until he reached the corner of the top floor. Then he pulled himself up, and plopped unceremoniously on his arse behind a stone column. 

"Ouch," he mumbled, rubbing his backside and scooting on it to get closer to whatever it was that was going on out of his sight. He edged closer to the column and peered out to the right. 

The two people he had seen enter were there, all right, the blonde, and the big ugly guy standing at her side again, just like he had been before. 

"...delivered by when?" the blonde was saying. 

Another voice, one out of sight and unrecognizable, said, "In six days, at the place you and I have already agreed on." 

"Good. And you're sure that Gambit won't interfere?" she asked, with a steel glint in her voice, it seemed. 

"Yes," the other voice replied malevolently, "he will be sufficiently detained elsewhere. The shipment will go out tonight and follow our route, and the man called Gambit will not be able to stop it." 

Oh, is that right? Quentin said to himself, inching backwards. Remy could kick all o' yer asses with one hand tied behind his back, you know, and still not break a sweat doin' it, and omigod I'm gonna hit that --

*clatter* 

Quentin froze, his breath caught in his throat, the metal pipe by his arm still rolling a little, back and forth. The conversation that had been going on that he had been eavesdropping on had halted, and footsteps were slowly approaching, heavy and forceful footsteps by the sound of them. Quentin dreaded thinking of the person behind them. 

The man who had been standing by the blonde's side looked him over, and raised one eyebrow. "Belle, it's that kid. What do you want I should do with him?" he asked over his shoulder. 

"Remy's new cohort, you mean?" the woman called back. 

"Yeah, that's the kid." 

"Kill him," came the flippant reply. 

"Uhhhh..." Quentin stammered. "How about not? I'll leave, honest, right now, won't cause any trouble, except this..." 

A foot shot up and slammed into the black-haired man's crotch, doubling him over. Quentin ran past him, jumped up onto the stone cropping, ran along it for a few steps, and then dove through the open window into the stairwell. It took him twenty-one seconds to get down the steps and across the street to the safety of his motorcycle, which spent the next fifteen minutes flying around town to ditch any pursuers. 


On to Chapter 5