The Shadowbroker and I kept talking a little longer, or rather he talked and I listened. His advice and the ideas he proposed were so spot-on that I had to assume that he had seen through my ruse, claiming to be simply a representative of a larger organisation, but that he went along with my story to maintain credible deniability. It irked me that he was apparently able to easily see through me, but I had to remember that it was likely, that he was playing this game for longer than I had been alive, so hoping to hoodwink him was pointless from the start. It reminded me of the old adage, to never go into a negotiation without sufficient information, but sometimes one had to play the cards that one was dealt. A horribly mixed metaphor, but it worked.
As he talked, I made my own plans to corroborate the information he had given me. The most important puzzle-piece was the claim that Clark, my ex-fiance was part of the League. In hindsight, there were a few hints that it was true, actions he had taken, things he had said, things like that, but I had never made the connection. Maybe, because I did not want to make it, an unconscious expression of my dislike for him, the conviction that he could never be powered, could never be special. It was possible that I had blinded myself and I was aware that I had deliberately blinded Galatea, it was one of her prime directives. She was not allowed to make connections between civilian, unpowered identities and the powered identities, unless I specifically ordered her to do so, using overrides of that prime directive. A normal command was not sufficient.
On the way home, I heard something interesting, a scream for help. I almost wanted to search for a camera, as ‘muggings in dark alleys’ were rather rare, mostly relegated to movies. It simply was not worth it, the amount of cash-money people carried around rapidly dwindled, thanks to the prevalence of places that took some sort of card. But no, it seemed Anath and I were in the vicinity of a true street-criminal- Obviously, there was no way that we could let that go, a chance to be heroes. Well, for me it was more a chance to test my new weapon-systems and whoever that criminal was, he had just volunteered as test-subject.
Finding the direction was easy, once the shout gave a hint that it was not just a group of people, Galatea found them in moments and guided Anath and me towards them. I asked Anath to let me have the first shot, as I wanted to try out my new toys, something she had no problem with.
Turning into the alley, I was a little surprised. It was a short alleyway and halfway down the alley, a maybe two meter high fence was making it a dead end. Judging by the scream, I had anticipated at least one girl, but no, there were four men in the alley, two large and rather menacing looking, bald caveman types were cornering the other two, using the fence to box them in. . The cornered guys looked frightened, one was shielding the other behind him. The one in front was wearing a sports-jacket and cloth-pants, looking overall fit and handsome, as if he had stepped of the cover of some fashion-magazine, the other guy was a little smaller, still gym-fit but more androgynous and pretty than the other. Not that it really mattered, I was after all, just here to test my new toys.
Feeling that, for my first crime-prevention, I should have some sort of awesome one-liner, I stepped up, letting my boots make telltale sounds on the pavement. Sadly, the only thing I could come up with was a lie.
“The last thing I want to do is hurt you. But, you know, it is still on my list.” My distorted voice filled the alley, causing all eight eyes to focus on me.
“Oh, great, a fucking freak. Why don’t you fuck off so we can show those two fucking queers what we think of fuckers like them?” caveman one growled at me. It was impressive that he managed to use a form of ‘fuck’ as an adjective, verb and noun in the same sentence. But apart from that, he was rather lacking.
“Now, where would be the fun in that?” I asked, just as the two caveman came to the conclusion that we would not just walk away and fully turned to us, relying on the fence to keep their prey in place. One of them even pulled out a switchblade, waving it, in what he had to believe would be a menacing gesture. I had no idea just why be thought that he could intimidate someone wearing powered armour strong enough to take a hit from an average tank and survive it with a knife. If he was powered, and strong enough to damage my armour, the knife would break long before it had any effect. But, now that both had turned to me, I felt that I had a legitimate case of self-defense going, just in case anyone ever asked.
Raising both arms, I aimed one arm at the one in the front, the other at the one in the back and triggered both new toys. The one in front was just close enough for the pressurized stream of pepper spray and, as luck would have it, he was trying to say something when I sprayed him. The result was that he not only had his face coated with the spray, it even got into his mouth and lungs. Seeing that, I instantly triggered an emergency call, letting Galatea talk to them and give an appropriate excuse. When it came to the fight, he was out and would need medical attention while he tried decide whether to cough out his lungs first or tear out his eyes.
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The other was easily in range of my air-taser and I tried to aim for his thigh, seeing that his leather-jacket might be able to withstand my projectile but that the jeans was relatively tight there. My shot hit and penetrated deeply enough to stick, causing the electrodes to give off their current, connecting a circuit through his body, but the shrill scream he gave off was a little too high and too pained for the amount of power I was using. I was roughly aware of the amount of pain he was in, but his hysterical screams seemed excessive. At least, they did until I got a closer look, when a wet spot formed slightly below the impact-point of my projectile. Only one prong of the taser was stuck in the thigh, the other was… not. Not in the thigh, to say the least. I felt myself blush with the realisation just what I had hit. Oh, well, I would have to call it a successful test, it had truly taken out the intended target.
As I moved up, I sent the projectile the command to stop putting out electricity, causing the caveman, who had curled up in a fetal position, to relax a little.
“Will you let me cuff you or do I have to turn the electricity back on?” I asked in a friendly voice. The result was impressive, he instantly made like a fish, flopping on his stomach and presenting his arms behind his back. Talk about a lasting impression. Using the zip-ties I had stored in my armour, I secured his arms behind his back, before putting him into a seating position to retrieve my projectile. A large part of me wanted nothing to do with retrieving it, but I forced myself to ignore its vicinity, happy that I was able to prevent smells from entering my helmet.
The other caveman was still busy coughing on the floor but there was little I could do for him, so I moved towards the two would-be victims, with Anath in tow, commenting to her that it had been a very successful test.
“Are you alright?” I asked, keeping my voice friendly. I did not really care about those two, but I wanted to get and keep a good reputation, to borrow a phrase, the reputation of a Dark Knight, fighting crime for my own reasons and in my own way. Public perception could be incredibly useful sometimes but it had to be cultivated. So, I put on a friendly voice and talked to the two victims.
“Yes… Thank you. I’m not sure what we would have done without you.” the guy in front was clearly of sterner stuff than his companion, his voice shook a little, but not much. The other guy was shaking and looked as if he would break out in tears any moment. Interestingly, both stood with their legs very close together, their stance similar to the guys setting up a wall in soccer.
I was about to make a quip to alleviate the situation but a police-cruiser pulling up at the entrance of the alleyway stopped me. There was no way that any tangling with the police would result in anything good, so I told Anath that we were leaving over the fence and dropped a smoke-bomb.
As the smoke started to spread, I took a slight bow to the two guys we had rescued and the police-officers, bidding them farewell in a friendly voice. Once the alley was filled with smoke, Anath and I took an easy leap over the fence, vanishing into the night.
Once we got back to my bunker, I started to mentally work through the conversation with the Shadowbroker, looking for inconsistencies, isolating the information given and classifying them, some as speculative on his part, some as plausible and others as confirmable. I almost missed Sophia telling me goodbye and that she would not be around for a bit, thanks to the upcoming finals.
The information that stood out was the fact that the killing of Alexandria King could have been a personal vendetta-type thing, pointing at a connection between my Metis-persona and Clark, else it should simply be seen as random, even if the connection between Alexandria King and Clark was taken into account. The immediate idea that it was personal hinted at a connection between Clark and the heroes I had gotten into conflict with. So, Battlemaster, Galactic Grip, the cyromancer and the pyromancer were possible, with Battlemaster and Galactic Grip taking the top spot as we had multiple clashes already.
Thinking back, I had an argument with Battlemaster before we went against the Scourge, so getting petty revenge afterwards would make the idea plausible.
“Galatea, display all archived interactions with either Battlemaster or Clark Greene. Read out definitive biometric data and compare.” I ordered, after swallowing a frog. I was about to violate a principle so important that I had actively ignored anything that might have brought the information I was now seeking to my attention.
“I cannot do that.” Galatea answered, reminding me on the gravity of the situation.
“Prime Directive Override, Juliet, Juliet Oscar, Quebec, India, Seven, Uniform, Mike, Zero, Niner, Three, Sierra, Three, Uniform, Echo, India” I spoke the override-code in a clear voice, as there was a pattern-match, else I would never trust a sixteen-letter password. I doubted anyone could impersonate me to the point that Galatea did not notice, but prudence was key when dealing with security concerns.
“Override accepted. I hope you know what you are doing, mother.”
“As do I, daughter.”
The information I had requested were displayed, some biometric data was unusable, thanks to the possibility of obfuscation thanks to the costume, but some things could not easily be faked. For example, making someone appear taller was relatively easy, making someone appear smaller was a lot harder. The same was true for metrics such as shoulder-width and similar characteristics. Incidentally, that was another point to discard Galactic Grip from my consideration. Even with his costume, he was simply too slender to be Clark. But he looked just like...
I forced myself to stop that line of thought. It would be so easy to actively hunt for the real identities of League-Members but it would paint a huge target onto me. No, I would break my principle this one time, but no more.
The comparison showed that there were a lot of metrics that fit, but not enough to give me a conclusive identification. I would have to collect more data and refine the algorithms.