Talyesin's Tales

Having shut down two drug cartels, Squirrelman, Ragdoll, and Ace decided to team up officially. Each headed off to conduct their own research into what was necessary in order to form their as yet unnamed team. In his guise as the CEO of Mr. Accountant, Squirrelman headed into work to set up the trust fund that would oversee the team's account, little knowing what kind of confrontation lay in store for him...




I drag my ass into work, almost an hour late. I’m setting a really bad example for the others, but what can I say? These days it seems like my ‘other job’ is the more important one. Saving lives and kicking ass is more important than figure out new and improved ways for big corporations to save even more money.

Rita the new robo-receptionist has her head tilted to one side, meaning she’s on the phone implanted in her head. She holds up one finger to me as I walk in and blinks very deliberately once, putting herself on hold.

“Stretch would like to see you, Matt. When you have a minute?” she smiles that not-quite-right smile the robos have. I mean, it looks alright, but there’s something that doesn’t quite go all the way. I nod and smile at her, heading for my office. I drop off the work I had brought home with me and head for Stretch’s office, knocking on his door frame when I get there.

Stretch looks up from his terminal.

“Hey partner,” he says, waving me in. He takes the phone earpiece out of his ear. “Close the door, will ya?”

I close the door and sit down on his leather couch.

“How you feeling?” he asks, leaning against his desk.

“Oh, must have been something I ate. I was on the can most of the day.”

Diarrhea. The ultimate call-in-sick excuse. No one questions it.

Stretch nods.

“Matt, how long have we known each other?”

“Like, twelve years?”

“So what’s going on?”

“What do you mean?”

“Lately you’ve been distracted at work, you take off in the middle of the day. You miss appointments with clients. You call in sick a lot.” Stretch looked at me. I’ve never seen him this serious. “Are you cheating on Kimmy?”

I laugh my ass off at that one. Stretch isn’t laughing though.

“Buddy, if I was cheating on Kimmy she’d kick my ass so hard I’d have to open my mouth to take a shit.”

“So what the fuck, Matt? It’s like... like I don’t know you any more.”

“I’ve been... preoccupied.”

“No shit. So what the fuck is going on?”

I look at him. He’s my partner, he’s my friend. I’ve known him since I came to this body, this reality. Before that, he and my predecessor had been friends since college. Matt Before Me was his Best Man. Kimmy and I have been over to their place dozens of times.

“Ron... you better sit down.”

I never call him Ron. Not since I came here.

“Just tell me.”

“Sit the fuck down, will you? Jesus.”

Stretch sits down on the couch.

“Ron...” I’m amazed at how hard this is. I take a deep breath.

“I’m Squirrelman.”

Stretch jumps to his feet.

“I KNEW IT!” he yells, pointing at me, this look of total joy on his face. “I FUCKING knew it. All those meetings with ‘special clients’, all those times you left in the middle of the day! I KNEW it.”

“Yeah, you’re a fricking genius.”

“I knew it,” Stretch says again, sitting back down. “Do something! Climb the wall.”

“Fuck off,” I grin at him, but I hot-squeeze out my claws. His eyes go huge and he’s grinning like an idiot. Then he looks at me.

“Wait a minute... why are you telling me?”

“Squirrelman, Ragdoll, Ace and a few others are teaming up.”

“Teaming... Holy SHIT, Kimmy’s Ragdoll!” He puts his head in his hands. “Kimmy’s Ragdoll. Holy shit.”

Fuck. I was hoping he wouldn’t figure that one out.

“Calm down, willya? You’re gonna give yourself a stroke at this rate.”

“Okay... okay.” He gets up and goes to the bar and pours himself a drink. He downs it and pours two, handing me one as he comes back to the couch.

“So you’re teaming up,” he says, a little calmer.

“I want Mr. Accountant to be the executors of the trust for the team.”

“Well... yeah. Hell yeah!” I can practically see the calculator in his head. “This will bring in tons of revenue, Matt.”

“And make us targets.” I look at my drink. “Stretch... If Squirrelman’s in a team...”

He looks at me, thinks for a second. He gets serious and nods.

“Matt will have to go silent partner,” he says, finishing the thought. “Who do you figure?”

“Sarah in Receivable? She basically runs the whole department anyway. I think she’s ready to step up to partner.”

“We make Sarah partner ahead of Jim...?”

“I know. So we make Jim partner too, put him in charge of New Clients. He’s good with people, just not employees. Sarah gets Operations. I’ll step down as CEO... You ready for it?”

He just nods. He lifts his glass.

“To a new partnership, then.”

I lift my glass too.

“To Squirrelman’s team and Mr. Accountant - I have the feeling this is the start of a beautiful friendship,” he says in a very bad Bogart impersonation. We both toss back our drinks.

“I was sure you knew,” I tell him. “All those jokes about me going to meet special clients whenever there was trouble in the city.”

“Well... I guess they were more than just jokes... I mean, I suspected... but I never really knew, you know? Shit. I mean... mostly I just figured it was a weird coincidence, thinking you were probably going out to bring in new clients, construction companies or whatever, people who wanted to rebuild from the big mask brawls.”

“You thought I was an ambulance chaser?”

He just laughs.

“Yeah, I guess. But the more I thought about it...”

“So...”

“So... How about we get going on the paperwork? I glanced at it once, back when the Pro-TECH-tors were shopping around for new executors? It’s a real nightmare, Matt.”

“Yeah... let’s do that.”

The rest of the day was spent going over the paperwork for setting up a trust to oversee the funds for a team of costumed crimefighters. I like paperwork as much as the next accountant, but I’d rather fight Doctor Affe’s entire Simianstaffel with one hand tied behind my back than go through that again. It took us most of the day to get most of it done... all that was left was to fill in the blanks under Membership.

By four I was ready to call it a day. We called in Jim and Sarah, made them partners, had a meeting with the rest of the Junior Partners to tell them that I’d be stepping down, saying it was for personal health reasons. It was an easy enough sell, given that my dedication to Mr. Accountant had been slipping. I was staying on as a major stock holder, all that stuff. By six I was exhausted.

And I still had dinner plans at the Cosmos Lounge to get through. And probably after that I’d go and see Doc Sterling.

I may have an accelerated healing factor and heightened endurance, but damned if they weren’t getting a workout today.