“Interrogation room four, Shakes,” Flock said casually, and definitely just loud enough so Ellis would hear it. The poor guy was already deeply uncomfortable, but she wasn’t taking any risks. If he was some kind of infiltrator or spy, she wanted him as jittery as possible. She let Shakes lead the way so she could observe her new captive a little more closely. Besides, she hated walking in front of potentially dangerous prisoners. The air of authority did not make up for the stupefying lack of safety. 

Shakes nodded and led Ellis down the hall, and Flock got a good look. Ellis was not what she would expect from someone who might make their way into her compound. Scans from her small bots had quickly confirmed that he was a biological human. There were no detectable augmentations, grafts or prosthetics, which was already unusual. Everyone in the Black Decks had some sort of modification, even if it was just an adrenal stimulator. Sending someone who was un-augmented would have raised suspicion more than anything. But he also didn’t have the physique of an assassin, someone who might get by without them. 

She cocked her head as her scans fed her more info. The process was practical and had saved her life on more than one occasion, but it was slow. Her little bots were infinitely useful, but also very small, and most of the bandwidth they were capable of using went into control signals. Receiving info from them was frustratingly slow. Underneath his strange clothes, he was, well, average. Painfully so. Not an assassin’s physique, but also not one of extreme labour, poverty or wealth. Some slight musculature that indicated that he moved sometimes. A little extra weight around the middle, maybe, but strong forearms. 

Ellis turned to look at her, and Flock didn’t blush, because she was definitely older than him and she was a powerful warlord and warlords definitely didn’t blush. She glared daggers at him until he turned around with a fearful look in his eyes. She was pretty sure he hadn’t seen her blush. Not that she’d blushed. 

She turned off the datafeed from the bots. So he wasn’t anything special. Then why and how had he used the portal to get into her base? What Flock wanted to believe was that it had been an accident. That Ellis had simply bumbled his way into one of the most fortified compounds, twenty floors in every direction. But she also knew that it was a great way to get herself and her people killed. She wasn’t going to make a mistake like that ever again. Maybe his name wasn’t even Ellis. 

She studied his face herself, walking a little behind and to the right of him. He had a strong face, but different from Shakes. Shakes looked like he was hewn from bedrock, carved into a face that was handsome but could probably deflect a bullet if necessary. Ellis was… softer. It wasn’t all edges, like most of the people in her life. The rich and poor, the cruel and the kind, everyone down here had found their softness sanded away over time until the edges were hard enough to cut, to protect oneself with. Ellis’ jaw was strong, but his chin had a little dimple that gave him a roguish quality, his black hair was long enough to get in his eyes, a soft brown underneath two gently curving eyebrows. He missed the sharp, outlined cheekbones that so many of the hungry she knew had. If it wasn’t for the subtle stubble, his face would be androgynous. Not that she minded. Hum. 

They arrived at a large door, one of the parts of the compound she explicitly refused to have her people clean. Sure, maintenance was called in from time to time to make sure the mechanisms still functioned, but under no circumstances did she want the actual door cleaned. In fact, when the room had first been installed, she’d made a point of it to hose the thing down with filth. It had reeked a bit at first, but that was only beneficial. 

Flock was all about appearances, after all. Anyone in front of that door had to be terrified of what might lie on the other side, and an imposing metal door that had suspicious brown spots, handprints and that smelled of refuse was a good way to do that, especially if the rest of the place was pristine by comparison. Ellis did, indeed, look distinctly spooked. Shakes, playing his part perfectly, took his time typing in the code, shooting Ellis the occasional glance, to allow the prisoner’s mind to do most of the work for him. 

The door slid open, and Ellis gasped. Flock grinned to herself. She loved this part, and stepped into the room as Shakes nudged her captive in next to her. The room was furnished in lovely dark wood, leather and bronze. There were bookshelves lining the walls, glass doors revealing the contents inside. Finding all of them had cost her a small fortune, but it was worth it. She’d read all of them back to back, and treasured the memory of paper between her fingers, the smell of the leather bindings. She didn’t have much time for that anymore. 

She walked around to a large mahogany desk and motioned to Ellis to sit down in one of the leather chairs opposite her. Behind her was a large window, a glass screen that simulated Black-62 in all its glory on a smogless day, moving lights everywhere, ships zipping back and forth, revealing the depths and the heights of the city. It was the perfect angle, and she’d recorded it herself. She was quite proud of it. 

Ellis’ eyes bugged out of his head. Flock tried not to smile. His expectation had probably been to see a torture room, all steel and concrete slick with blood and gore. That expectation had been shattered, and he was already visibly relaxing, his main emotion now one of wonder. She sat behind the desk and the screen already threw up the metrics on her screen. Torture, in her experience, was useless. Someone deeply relieved to not be tortured, however, was likely to be a font of knowledge. 

“So, Ellis,” she began as data began to come in. There were two mages in the adjacent room, both of them trying to make sure there wasn’t a single magical thing about Ellis, and both ready to vaporize him if he came within five feet of the Queen’s desk. 

“So,” Ellis said, a little nervous still, looking around the room with wonder. 

“What are you doing here, Ellis?” Flock asked, locking her hands together against her lips, and glaring at him over them. “Convince me not ventilate you and feed you to the Shredders.” She closed her eyes in frustration, knowing she’d probably gone overboard with the threat. Playing the part of the villain was easy, sure, but subtlety was hard and she had a tendency to make people uncomfortable. There was a reason she didn’t really have, well, friends. When she opened them again, Ellis squirmed in his chair. 

“Look, ma’am… uh… miss… sorry, what do I call you? I just don’t want to offend you. Uh… what are your, uh, preferred pronouns?” Flock blinked a few times. Did this buffoon really not know who she was? But… he’d been in her compound. Nobody who plays it stupid plays it -that- stupid, she thought to herself, and squinted at him. 

“I’m the Queen of Black-62,” she said. “That should be all you need to know.” It was hard not to stammer, but it had been years since she'd spoken to someone in her role as the Queen that she was genuinely taken aback by the fact that he had no idea who she was. “Um,” she said, and barreled forward, hoping her little stumble would go unnoticed, “you didn’t offend me, Ellis. Sh-she and her are fine, thank you,” she added, and cursed at herself again. 

“Cool,” Ellis said. “Cool cool. Uh, he and him for me. I’ve like, considered trying they-them some time, but I’m not very comfortable with that, you know? Feels like I’m appropriating like, queer culture? But my relationship is queer so I guess it’s not that bad? I was always wondering what it would be like, bu--”

“A-hem.” Flock’s fake cough cut through his words like a knife, leaving the end of his sentence hanging in the air like a bisected piece of string, floating away on the wind. “That’s -- that’s not relevant right now,” she said and rubbed the bridge of her nose so he couldn’t see the fact that she was smiling. This character was disarming, and she was having to breathe to remind herself that she was supposed to be interrogating him. She cleared her throat. “Hum. I need to know what you’re doing here. How you used that portal, who you work for. What do you want, Ellis?”

He squirmed uncomfortably in his chair. “I honestly don’t know how I got here, Your Majesty,” he said, and Flock clenched her jaw to keep herself from snorting. Nobody called her that. Breathe through your nose, she reminded herself. Just breathe. She couldn’t keep her eyes from going wide, but Ellis didn’t seem to notice. “I was at home with my partner and my… friend.” A meaningful pause. A riddle for later, the whole conversation was being recorded anyway, much to her embarrassment. “A portal opened in our living room, and we were all sucked in. I got knocked out and woke up here.” Ellis bit his lip. “I’d very much like to find my partner and my friend, please.” He looked around. “Look, I… I get what you’re doing here,” he said, and Flock frowned. Something about the way he said that...

“Explain,” she said coldly. 

“You’ve got the whole villain schtick going on, Your Highness, but, like, it doesn’t make sense, right?” Flock blinked a few times. How in the Seven Gold Ones had he seen through her so easily? “Could have just shot me, right? If you thought I was some kind of infiltrator?”

“Maybe I don’t like waste,” she said from behind her steepled fingers, her eyes boring into his. Was she that easy to see through?

“Look, like, I’ve read enough fantasy to see what you’re going for here, and, like, don’t get me wrong, you do it really well,” Ellis said, leaning forward conspiratorially, “but you seem way too nice for this. So I don’t know what your game is, but I just wanna say that, like, it’s a little derivative, but the execution is ten out of ten.” 

“What.”

“Like, when I woke up, I thought you were your typical criminal gang leader or something, but people treat you with respect, not fear, you and that Shakes guy clearly have a sense of humour about stuff, and despite your threats, you haven’t actually hurt me or killed me or whatever. And I don’t think you will.”

“Who the fuck are you?”

“Ellis Hamilton, My, uh, My Queen. Film studies graduate of ‘09,” he said, as if that meant anything. He certainly seemed to think so. He winked. Flock could only stare at him, too perplexed to say anything else. “So what is your deal, Your Majesty? What’s with the theatrics?” What she wanted to know was how he’d so easily seen through it all? He was the first in fifteen years, since she’d first taken up the mantle, who had seen through her before she’d said anything, and he’d done so with so little effort it made her feel ashamed. Realization hit her like a bullet to the brain. Someone like that, sharp as a knife while seemingly oblivious as a newborn pup, could be invaluable, if she could convince him to join her. She stood up, and pressed a button on her desk. The screen behind her flickered, and went from showing Black-62 to the inside of a warehouse.

“I’m going to trust you, Ellis,” Flock said. “Because I get the feeling that, if I don’t, you’re going to figure it out yourself. And if you breathe in the wrong direction, talk to someone I didn’t give you permission to, send one wrong signal, I’m going to murder you so thoroughly your grandparents will have never existed. Are we clear?”

“Crystal,” Ellis said, and then he gave her a smile and a thumbs-up. He’d be infuriating if he wasn’t so damned endearing. She sighed and shook her head, then turned to the screen, clasping her hands behind her back.

“The Queen of Black-62 is a villain,” she said. “Higher up, it’s all pristine companies, holding charity events and balls, pretending like they’re making the city a better place, but it’s crime lords whether you go up or down. They keep their peace with their heroes and their mercenary armies and bleed every floor dry, trickling it up to them.” Flock sighed. “And they’re very powerful. Anyone who tries to stand up to them is quickly disappeared. That’s why they like me, down here. Just another warlord keeping the population from rising up.” She looked over her shoulder at Ellis, then back at the screen. The warehouse was full of people putting what seemed to be ration packs into boxes, which were being put onto pallets that were quickly shipped out. “So I keep playing the villain, and occasionally they’ll make a half-hearted attempt to send someone down here to take me out. And in the meantime, I make sure everyone in Black 62, and above and below where we can, is fed and healthy. Let them think it’s only slums down here.”

“Hah,” Ellis said behind her. “So you’ve got people up there, hiding criminal shittiness behind charity, and you’re down here hiding your charity behind criminal villainy? Nice.”

“Nice?” Flock asked, turning around with a raised eyebrow.

“Heck yeah,” Ellis said. “You’re cool. That’s why I’m comfortable asking you.”

“Asking me what?” Cool? She’d have to shelve that for later.

“If you can help me find my friend, Mal, and my partner, Tee. I’m hoping they showed up around here, and if anyone can find them it’s probably you, right?”

“Ah,” Flock said. That complicated things. They looked at Ellis, clenched their jaw and typed something else into the console, bringing up security footage. “You’re going to want to see this.”