The Surprising After-Credits Teaser

West Side Siren has some interesting vacation plans.

Challenger Confidential: Copper Knights and Granite Men

The Surprising After-Credits Teaser

By Michael A. DiBaggio and Shell "Presto" DiBaggio

(To find previous chapters of Copper Knights and Granite Men, visit The Story Directory.)

Despite all you’ve heard about the steep drop in New York’s crime rate since the city’s independence and the end of the Interbureau Wars, Central Park still wasn’t a safe place to walk alone at night, much less so if you were a woman. On the other hand, if you were a woman with the ability to make men obey you with nothing but a whisper, you probably had nothing to worry about, and so the West Side Siren walked serenely along the lilac-fenced footpath toward the Lake. The moon was high and bright enough that she could leave the lighted trail behind and easily pick her way through the bushes, across the turf, and under the weeping cherry trees to the sandy margins of the water.

She looked all around her and saw no drowsing bums, no insomniac joggers, nor poor folk poaching fish for tomorrow’s dinner. Here, all was quiet and peace. Though she was in the center of Manhattan, there was no sight or noise of the city, and if not for how obviously manicured and laboriously tended the landscape was, she might be alone in a pleasant wilderness far inland. Not that Siren had ever been to such a place; she was a city girl with little interest in wild places. In fact, she once boasted that she’d never even been north of 105th street. She was not here for the scenery.

Crouching down, she traced a symbol in the sand, perfectly meaningless to her, with the tip of a polished stone. When she finished, she buried the stone in the sand and then turned around and started to walk back.

A sound that reminded her of her grandfather’s death gasp froze her. Quickly it was followed by a rattling and shifting of those grains of sand, like a localized earthquake. She turned, her breath coming quickly and her hand pressed atop her drumming heart, to see the grains piling atop one another in the shape of a human body. Gradually the contours became more solid, the texture less gritty, and the blank head took on the features of a familiar face.

“Jesus! I had no idea!” She had, of course, known that this man that first approached her two weeks ago, calling himself Mr. Sand and bearing an offer and a bribe, was not really human. He was fully clothed at the time and sipping coffee in a cafe, but the tells were still apparent: his movements were too stiff, his face too expressionless, his eyes too empty. Originally, she figured him to be one of those robot mannequins that you could operate by telepresence, a crude but functional facsimile that could pass as a real man from a short distance. She’d heard of some of the gang bosses doing that. It was useful if you had to interact with real people but couldn’t risk exposing yourself and you didn’t have anyone you trusted to be your messenger. But then she couldn’t hear any of the hissing and whirring of servos and motors, and it didn’t take her long to notice the sandy texture of his skin, or the weird mark on his forehead, half-covered by the brim of his hat. Siren was never much interested in folklore or ghost stories, but she knew how to search the Grid as well as anyone else, and when she read about golems, she was unsophisticated enough to accept the plain reality without the hardheaded doubt of the better educated.

“I did not expect to hear from you again,” Mr. Sand said in his deep, unhurried monotone.

“I didn’t expect you to spring out of the ground!”

“You summoned me, didn’t you?”

Siren blinked uncomprehendingly. “Is that what that was? A bit of magic? Hell, I thought it was just a dead letter drop! You never did that before.” She’d performed that ritual twice before, but she always had to wait hours, even a day, before she met up with him. Mr. Sand just always seemed to know where to find her, wherever she was in the city.

Mr. Sand nodded stiffly. “The power of my master has grown significantly, and as he waxes, so do his servants. Now, what do you want?”

Siren brushed her hair back and tried to shake off her uneasiness, tried to remember the reason she wanted to talk to him in the first place. Quickly, she remastered herself and said with a smile, “Oh, you know…just a little quid pro quo.”

“You were already paid for the services you rendered at the museum. Services that you rendered poorly.”

Siren narrowed her eyes at the slight. “He got his fancy armor, didn’t he?”

“With little thanks to you,” intoned Mr. Sand.

“It’s not my fault his goons couldn’t drive a car or keep their mouths shut! When I left, the Promethean didn’t have a clue what happened.”

“You waste both of our time. You will receive no further payment for your cooperation.”

“Not for that!” Siren interrupted. “I found out something else that your master will want to know.”

Mr. Sand looked at her in silence for a time. Siren guessed the golem was thinking, but his face was as impassive as ever. She found his emotionless stare unnerving. Finally, it spoke: “Regarding what?”

Siren laughed. “Let’s just say I spent a little time with Amp after the robbery, and I got his lips very loose. I promise your boss that it’s worth his while, and for a trifle…”

“What do you ask in return?”

“Well, since those dumb-ass Spaniards can’t manage to win a war, my trip to Barcelona is indefinitely postponed. I wanted to spend couple of weeks in the Riviera instead, and things are a little pricier there. So, just enough to salvage my vacation. Say… two thousand?”

“I will carry your request to the Copper Emperor. You will hear from me by tomorrow evening.”

Siren winked. “I’m looking forward to it.”

This marks the end of Copper Knights and Granite Men. We hope you enjoyed it, and if you did, it would help us a ton if you would please leave a positive review for it on the Copper Knights and Granite Men Amazon page. Even just two sentences is a big help.

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