Chapter 7

Rick sat there silently, drumming his fingers against the table.
"Okay."
"Do I even want to KNOW?"
The man sitting across from him looked at Rick very soberly, his hands clasped before him. "Yes, I really believe you do."
Rick leaned back in his seat, looking very visibly uncomfortable. "All right- you know, I go through this kind of weirdness on a regularity of about once a week. If you’ve got some kind of point to this, do me a favor and just cut to it."
Ultimate’s facial expression did not change as he mused. "You really are just like your father."
Rick grimaced, feeling frustration rise in the back of his throat. "Yeah, you know, I get that a lot."
"Your father was a good man," Ultimate continued. "I won’t bore you with the specific details, but I’m sure you were aware that he and I were often allies."
"Um... yeah, that... yeah that rings a bell," Rick told him, trying to remain composed.
I REALLY HAVE NO CLUE WHAT HE’S TALKING ABOUT
"I came here because I am aware that you have taken up your father’s mantel, and frankly, I need help. The sort of help only your father was ever able to give me," Ultimate explained to Rick.
"Oh, well, I can appreciate-" Rick narrowed his eyes at Ultimate, suddenly looking annoyed again. "How did you find me here?" Ultimate said nothing, and Rick came to the conclusion himself, pulling the card Ultimate gave him earlier out of his coat pocket. "A phone, eh?"
"I only said it was something like that," Ultimate told him. "I recognized you as Matthew’s son, and knew I’d need to contact you."
"Well, that’s all well and good-" Rick said, slapping the card on the table as he stood. "-but I think we’re done here. I don’t like being tricked."
Before Rick could walk away he felt a firm hand, like cold steel, take hold of his free forearm. "Maine... Ram, please. I won’t defend my methods. But believe me when I say that if I am not a man who chooses his allies lightly. I am here because I genuinely need your help- and if a man such as I needs your help, truly you can understand the level of the problem?"
Rick felt an odd mix of fear and anxiety well in his stomach, and he found himself sitting back down. "All right... I’ll hear you out."
Ultimate put his hands back on the table as if nothing had happened. "What happened to me earlier today was no random incident. I wasn’t simply attacked- I was drained."
"Drained?" Rick repeated.
"In a fraction of a second, I felt all of my strength leave my body," Ultimate explained to him. "This is not a completely foreign sensation for me; when you’ve been in this business as long as I have, your enemies find ways to handicap you. My team managed to get me back to base safely, and we discovered a surveillance camera captured a vague image of a man setting up equipment upon a rooftop that was well within range of where I was flying."
"You think this man is the one who... assaulted you?" Rick asked carefully.
"The tape wasn’t clear," Ultimate told him. "However, by running a cross report, we found the man in the image matched the description of another man who is a suspect in a kidnaping case, a kidnaping that occurred in Shinbone."
"But- wait, I don’t see how those two incidents relate," Rick told him. "What would motivate a kidnapper to... "drain you?"
"The kidnaped in question were two children- homeless children known only as Maria and Diego," Ultimate continued. "Before the vanished, they complained to a social worker about a man harassing them a regular basis to participate in medical experiments. As I said, I’ve been in this business a long time. I can tie together these two incidents."
Rick paused, looking thoughtful. "I need you to understand something- I am not in the best of health. I cannot participate in anything that requires me to, well, fight."
Ultimate nodded, "I understand, and you needn’t worry. I only ask for your consultation."
Rick stood again, but slowly. "Give me a day to get some things in order- I’ll do what I can."
Ultimate stood as well, shaking Rick’s free hand. "I’d expect nothing less from Matthew Maine’s son."