The windy air of the rooftop was bitingly cold as Sandra adjusted the utility belt around her waist, lowering the zip of the catsuit to her jugular, pondering the office building opposite of her.
Checking the device mounted on her left arm, Sandra then outstretched it, aiming up at the building, making a gesture, touching a button on her palm. With a quiet thwip, a sticky rope shot out and went taut as it clipped to the tower. The rope was treated with an automatically aligning, powerful adhesive. Sandra unclipped the rope from the emitter on her wrist, sticking it to a fairly heavy crate, making sure that it did not lose its tautness. Once it was secured, she took a domino mask from her pocket, lifting it onto her face and pressing down on it, causing the mask to latch on and stick.
And then, Sandra became Justice. And justice was unstoppable.
When she masked up, only then did she begin to use the rope to skywalk to the building. Each delicate step, Justice seemed to keep composed as she kept her arms out in her gait, and she’d managed to clear half of the distance already. Beneath her feet, cars sped past, and Justice knew full well that if she’d somehow messed this up, there was a good possibility that she’d end up as a pretty slop composed of blood, viscera and bone shards on the pavement. But that was the whole fun of it. As she walked, Justice’s gait was almost interrupted by a ringing sound. Tapping into her heads-up display, she saw that her aide, Jailbird, was calling. Naturally, she answered.
“Hey… I’m checking out your video feed,” said Jailbird, “are you…”
“Tightrope training really pays for itself, doesn’t it, Jailbird?” Justice responded. “The Spider boots and gloves are able to stick to the Spinneret’s rope, right?”
“I… haven’t got it tested, but hopefully, it should.”
“That’s… comforting.”
“J- Just stay safe!”
“Will do, babe.”
The call ended as Justice neared the end of the rope. She put her gloved left hand against the glass window of the skyscraper, and it stuck. Then, she pressed both feet onto the window. Instead of falling to the ground and ending up as a bloody pancake on the pavement, however, Justice simply stuck to the window like a spider. Once she confirmed she was properly stuck onto the window, she took out her glass cutter and attached it to the window. Setting it to the maximum diameter, she delicately pushed the handlebar of the glass cutter around, carving a circle into the window. Once she finished, she took the cutter out. She didn’t immediately kick it down though. Instead, she pulled the rope off of where it had stuck, clipping it into the Spinneret. Once it was clipped, Justice jerked her arm upwards, sending the crate that she attached the other end of the rope to hurtling towards the building, a few floors above her.
With another gesture, the rope reeled back into the Spinneret, and - as the crate broke the window of the floor above - Justice pushed the excised glass down, taking great care not to shatter it.
“What was that?” barked a startled police officer.
Another said “I don’t know, but I think it was on the floor above us!”
“Scott, Renée, Parker, Léon!” barked one of the officers, “Get on me, we’re going to go check whatever made that noise out!”
Sneaking into the building, Justice held her trench coat a little tighter and kept the brim of her hat drawn over her face as she retreated to a dark, secluded area of the office. Closing her eyes, she began to hum a melody. In her heads-up display was a primitive sonar powered by this humming. It only worked indoors, but it allowed for her to pick up on what she needed. Five cops were standing at attention, ready to detain any trespassers, and the other five had gone upstairs to investigate the distraction Justice had set up. The five other officers would be an issue, though - they were actively on patrol, meaning Justice would have to think about how she snuck through the halls.
There were multiple tense calls as Justice snuck past the five patrolling officers, all resolved through practical trickery, or a quick flip behind whatever cover was available to her. As she neared the blocked-off office, however, Justice almost exposed her position with a gasp as a guard passed the alcove she was crouching in. But this was a ruse. The officer walked on. With this, Justice snuck into the office.
Almost immediately, as soon as she walked in, the miasma of dry blood and burnt magnesium filled Justice’s nose. Now, though, she was able to get a closer look at that curious symbol she’d seen that evening. The symbol was a bizarre caricature of a man, the head represented by a simplistic, small kite shape, and all of the man’s limbs represented by two reflected arcs.
With this, Justice used her heads-up display. “Jailbird, do you know what this is? It’s the sigil on the wall where the body of Alfie Moldoff was found.”
Jailbird processed this, before responding “I believe that’s the icon of the Burning Man festival!”
“‘Burning Man’?”
“I- It’s a yearly American festival where Bohemians, artists, hippies, and other free spirits all camp out in the desert for a week to burn a wooden effigy! This effigy’s supposed to represent corporations, and the ‘Burners’ (that’s what the veterans of Burning Man call themselves) burning this effigy is basically them rejecting the regimented lifestyle corporatism propagates!”
“Sounds cool. Remind me to book a flight to America when I’m older, and I have the cash. When’s the next one?”
“A- April!”
“I’ll keep myself updated on it, then.” said Justice, scanning the room. However, she saw something. Three drawers left untouched, unopened. After walking to it, she opened the first drawer. Nothing was inside. But the second one was a different story. Inside was a rather large sheet of paper. Printed on the back was an extract from a book. This extract covered the last few moments of a man, in dire need of fire for light, who lit the pages of a book in order to provide kindling for flame to provide light to help him read more of that same book, uncaring of if the flame bit his fingers.
“‘He tears out the first page, rolling it into a tight stick which he turns into a torch. It burns for two minutes, allowing him the time to read the next two pages, which in turn are ripped out and rolled into a torch…’ Jailbird, what does this mean?”
Jailbird herself pondered a potential answer. “Well, maybe it’s a sign you’re going to have to burn the paper in order to find a message?”
Justice pondered this. “How convenient that I brought the old Devil’s Whisper glove.”
Placing the paper between her right hand’s thumb and forefinger, she moved the digits in opposite directions, causing a spark to be emitted as her index hit her hand, lighting the paper. The paper began to catch alight, but - oddly enough - small regions of the sheet would simply be ignored by the consuming flame.
“You were right, Jailbird…” said Justice, watching as the paper burnt, “it’s… revealing some kind of message.”
Slowly, as the thin strips of paper burnt off and turned into ash, a message written in a scruffy cursive hand began to reveal itself to Justice in the ash. After a few minutes of waiting for the burn to subside, it finally finished, revealing some kind of bizarre riddle.
“What happens after the cremation of the Burning Man?” read Justice.
“Seems our killer didn’t want this to be that easy…” muttered Jailbird, “I can’t find an answer to that anywhere. At least one that’d make some kind of sense. D- Do you see any prints on it?”
“I scanned the paper and the drawer it was in as I picked it up. There was nothing.”
“Alright… G- Go have a look around the building!” ordered Jailbird. “Maybe we can find something related to the case!”
“Nah. A cop told me that the body was taken to forensics, I’ll check at the police station.”
“Y- You sure?”
“Yeah. My cop friend said the body of Mr. Moldoff’s son was going to be processed over there, so do me a favour and keep dinner warm, babe.”
“A- Alrighty…” said Jailbird. “Stay safe out there!”
Once the call closed, Justice began her escape from the building. Sneaking along the dark cubicles, weaving between officers, she returned to the hole in the window and aimed the arm where the Spinneret was mounted at a building a little to her right, on the opposite side of the road. Gesturing, a thread shot from the Spinneret and then stuck to the opposite building, after which Justice jerked her arm, causing herself to shoot out of the area. The wind on her face, the tails of her trench coat flaring in the wind, Justice didn’t care as the officers in the building behind her shouted for backup, one aiming their gun at where she was standing.
However, they had spotted her far too late. Already, she had hurtled off into the night, her black clothes blending into the black windows of the building she had landed on. Once the fire stopped, Justice lifted herself up with her Spider gloves, climbing onto the rooftop of the building. After this, she began to run along the towers, jumping and diving as alleyways cut off the seams of the buildings.
It was these types of nightly missions, to Justice, that were the one of the most adrenaline-pumping, liberating experiences one could have. She enjoyed the rush, the thrill that came from each jump, sprint, flip, and wall-kick. Justice’s gleeful thoughts were interrupted, however. As she almost jumped from one building to the next, she stopped as she heard a scream from the particularly large gap that was the alleyway just below her. Stopping in her tracks and glancing down at whatever the altercation was, Justice saw that a pedestrian was being mugged.
“Shut up, and just let me take it!” said the mugger, holding a gun to her victim’s temple, attempting to wrestle a necklace from each others’ hands.
“No! You can’t!” said the pedestrian. “I- I can give you my wallet, my ID, my-”
“Bullshit!” barked the mugger, pressing the gun closer to the pedestrian’s temple. “Now give it to me and I’ll-”
Justice aimed her Spinneret at the mugger’s gun and jerked her arm up, snatching the pistol out of the mugger’s hands. Pulling the slide back and removing its magazine, she completely removed the slide, snapping her right hand’s fingers as the pistol’s components dropped to the ground. The mugger, confused, cursed, before snatching her victim’s necklace in her confusion and running off into the alleyway, leaving her victim. However, as soon as the mugger began her escape, Justice came in hot pursuit of her from the rooftops.
The mugger took quite a lot of twists and turns, but eventually, in an isolated dead end of an alleyway, the mugger stopped to catch her breath. Using her Spinneret’s rope to descend the building, Justice stood silently, opposite of the mugger. For a few seconds, she ignored Justice, but her gaze was led to the phantom standing over her.
This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it.
The mugger stammered, before shouting “W- Who the hell are you?”
Justice was silent, only walking up to the mugger slowly, deliberately. She was in a different mindset altogether. Her stepping slow, calculated, catlike as the predator neared her prey. Then suddenly, the mugger sent a right hook towards Justice’s face. “Take this, you freak!” Almost immediately, though, she caught the fist, and - with her knee - sharply pounded the mugger down. Once the mugger was down, Justice moved up, and stood on her. As her boots were heeled, pressing down her leg caused the mugger to screech in pain as the metal pressed into her side. It wouldn’t leave a mark, and Justice knew that, but what Justice also knew was that this was extremely painful.
“Okay, okay!” seethed the mugger. “I’ll give you what you want, just stop!” Justice let her leg up, away from the mugger, after she said this. “You want a name? I got you-”
Justice snapped her right hand’s fingers, creating a small detonation with a small boom. As the smoulders of the chemicals dripped down her glove, Justice rubbed her thumb and forefinger together.
“M- My cash! Wait, no… my name!” exclaimed the mugger, gleeful. “A- Alright, my name’s Eva Champion, I-”
Justice shook her head. With her index finger, she traced the mugger’s collar.
“I get what you mean, j- just do me a favour and friggin’ speak!” shouted the mugger.
Making her voice hoarse, Justice breathily groaned one simple word. “Neck… lace…”
“T- The necklace?” asked the mugger.
Justice slowly nodded, expectantly holding out her hand. In response to this, the mugger immediately handed Justice the necklace that she’d stolen from her victim.
“I want one more thing.” stated Justice, slowly pocketing the necklace. “I want your loyalty, Eva. Where I tell you to go, you go. What I tell you to do, you do. Or else I won’t just knock you unconscious.”
“You won’t what?”
Raising her fist, Justice knocked the mugger on her head hard, watching as she fell unconscious. After putting Eva into handcuffs, Justice dialled Jailbird again. Once the line was up, she asked - in her normal speaking voice - “Call the police to my position. I’ve just subdued a mugger.”
“Okie-dokie!” said Jailbird. “Call me back when you’ve investigated the body, m’kay? And stay safe out there!”
“Got it. Love you, Birdie.”
“L- Love you too!”
Once Jailbird closed the line, Justice aimed her arm up, and shot a rope up as the rope stuck to a building. Pulling her arm, she then began hurtling upwards, beginning to swing through the city’s skyline. It was pretty from up there. Under her feet, the cold wind blowing in her face, the warm orange city lights helped illuminate Justice’s way to the police station, cars speeding along and pedestrians walking along, her presence unknown, impossible for the people to comprehend as her garb blended in with the night sky. When the police station was in sight, Justice ceased her swinging and lowered herself down in front of the police station, almost looking as though she was descending from the skies.
After that, Justice then walked into the police station. The environment was warm, and clearly designed at least in an effort to seem comforting and appealing, even if it wasn’t at all effective. Naturally, like most police stations, there was a certain amount of noise, mainly officers chatting about coffee, interrogations occurring in adjacent rooms, et cetera. Walking to the front desk, Justice loomed over the officer at the desk, looking down on him. As the officer trembled, Justice slid her hand into her jacket’s pocket, and took out a paper, a name scrawled on it, setting it down on the counter. The officer scanned it, before turning to the back.
“Katja!” barked the officer, his voice shaky as Justice stared him down. “The, uh… Justice chick’s here…”
“What was that, sir?” asked Katja, tiredly walking in from another room, a plastic coffee cup in her hand. “Brass is setting up a cartel bust, I’ve been spending an hour trying to find someone in this precinct who won’t take it for themselves-”
Katja cut herself off as she finally locked in on Justice. Still somewhat intimidated, the officer at the counter said “She… asked for you.”
“Alright, ma’am. Last time anyone from this precinct tried to get you in cuffs, you sent me to the doctor’s with a gash in my face and a stiff hand, and at least ten more cops to the hospital in casts. I wouldn’t like a repeat of that.” began Katja, sipping her coffee. “What do you want?”
“Alfie Moldoff.” stated Justice. “Where is his body?”
“We’ve got a mortician in the basement analysing the kid’s body.”
“Would I be allowed in?”
“No. I can tell you what they’ve found right now. Paul!” she said, calling to the officer at the counter, “What’d that quack find?”
The officer called Paul typed something into the computer before saying “Nothing the detectives haven’t already found. Kid’s insides were burnt from the inside, probably by magnesium, but the killing blow was a .32 slug in the frontal lobe. There’s signs he died screaming, and it’s clear that Alfie was roughed up a little bit. This probably all happened… Yesterday morning, based on the kid’s blood, it’s all dried up. Body’s as stiff as a board.”
Justice nodded, before turning back to Katja. “Do you have any evidence from the murder scene?”
“Of course. The killer was sloppy, left a shell casing. No prints, and the serials on the shells were sanded off, except for the shotgun ammunition - Dragon’s Breath rounds imported from the US. You plan on taking them with you?”
“No. I can get them analysed from here, Wojciech.”
“Thought someone like you would’ve had some sort of private cave or setup…” muttered Katja. “Follow me, then.”
Justice followed behind Katja, trudging up the stairwell. As the shorter woman guided her to a door labelled ‘EVIDENCE’, she took a glance through the tall window built into the door. Within the evidence room, a lone woman in a headscarf and glasses adjusting a stack of papers, slotting it into a file cabinet. Katja knocked on the door, saying “It’s me!” and the woman in the headscarf gestured for the officer to come in. Justice leaned against the wall, waiting out of sight, but watching nonetheless. The two officers shared an eskimo kiss, grinning and giggling, before Katja put on a sterner face. “Justice, come in.” she ordered.
So, just as ordered, Justice entered the room. As she skulked in, she began to analyse each locker and file cabinet. Nothing much, only cursory glances However, she locked in on the woman handling the evidence drawers.
“Ms. Mansour,” said Justice, leaning on the woman’s desk, her stare unwavering, “I need the shell casings taken from the site where Alfie Moldoff’s body was found.”
“You’re a little straightforward, aren’t you?” said Katja, sipping her coffee. “She would’ve done it for you anyways, the least you could do is ask her nicely.”
“No, no.” said Zahra, standing up, opening a locker and filing through its contents. “It’s all good. She managed to crack the first case you let her do in a week. Certainly better than what the fresh batch of trainees did.”
“But babe-”
“Nuh uh. I’m not hearing it!” Zahra said, unveiling two small plastic baggies with the spent pistol and shotgun shell inside one of each. “Anyways, I assume you know enough about your guns to be useful for something like this?”
“Officer Wojciech told me that the shells used were Dragon’s Breath, based on the serial number inside. There were traces of magnesium oxide found in Alfie Moldoff’s bloodstream, correct?”
“That’s right.” said Zahra.
“And his stomach was burnt up.”
“Bingo…” muttered Katja, nodding, beginning to understand the thought process of Justice. “And magnesium is the stuff in Dragon’s Breath!”
“So he was shot in the stomach.” verified Justice. “Great. But what does this tell us about our suspect… Well, the killing blow was a shot to the head. If I were to shoot you in the head, would you die?”
“Yes, of course-”
“With this shot to the stomach, the killers wanted to prove something.” Justice said. “Prove they’re not going to shoot you and be done with it. Even if it’s only for a little bit, they want to use the pain and abject misery that they put their victims through as a way to send out a message.”
“Well, what group would make a message out of the son of one of the city’s biggest media tycoons?” asked Zahra.
“Most likely some kind of racketeering ring wanting to hide something big from the diggers,” Justice began, placing the bags down “or a crime family wanting to scare Moldoff into some sort of payroll scheme. It’ll take some extensive research to find out who’d target him, though.”
“Alright.” Katja said, turning away to put the plastic baggies away, Zahra placing the pile of papers in a file cabinet. “Do you know anyone who can-”
Katja and Zahra faced where Justice once stood, only to see nothing. Absolutely nothing.
“Sunuva gun…” muttered Katja.
----------------------------------------
Sandra pulled the mask off of her face and placed it in her pocket, then trudged through the door of her and Irina’s hideout, hanging her coat and hat on the adjacent hangers, and slumped down on the cheap couch in the lobby of the hideout as soon as she could, lowering her catsuit’s zip a little more, just so she could breathe. Walking into the lobby from the room her ‘battlestation’ (the computer setup she used) was held in, Irina smiled, sitting next to Sandra on the couch.
“Tired?” asked Irina, a small smile on her face.
“You try running about, doing flips in a trench coat. I ought to get myself something a little lighter on the shoulders…”
“M- Maybe you could wear a cape?”
“I wouldn’t complain if it was Halloween… It’s just a little too extravagant for me, you know?”
Irina pouted, standing up off of the sofa. “Well, it was worth the effort… Need me to make you a drink?”
“That’d be nice.” said Sandra, standing up. “Just one more thing, though…”
“D- Do you want any papers scanned?”
“Not now.” Sandra said. “Just wanted to say I love you.”
“Sandra, you cornball!” said Irina, smiling warmly, heading to the small kitchenette in the hideout. “What have you found, by the way?”
Sandra followed behind into the kitchenette and filled a kettle with some water before placing it on the stove, turning on the gas and letting it sit, before replying “Well… it’s clear it was a mob hit that killed Alfie Moldoff. Which gang it was, though? I don’t know that just yet. I’m going to have to get a little bit more information before I come to any sort of conclusion…”
Irina turned to the TV opposite the couch in the lobby, and somehow, it flickered to life without a remote, almost like a ghost had somehow flicked it on. On the telly was an old black-and-white film from the early 1960s, a criminal hiding in the shadows of a coffee shop as a mobster drilled a woman for information.
“That’s the movie I was talking about this afternoon!” said Irina, happiness in her eyes, placing a teabag each inside of two mugs.
Sandra cooed, smiling. “Tell me about it.”
“A- Alright! So basically, there’s this… this man, and - when he was, I don’t know, 12? - his dad was killed by these mobsters! And then the kid - when he grows up - is really angry about it and he drills the one guy he recognises for the name of all the other mobsters!”
There was noise of a scuffle on the TV, causing Sandra’s gaze to turn to it. In the film, the man then subdues the mobster and guides the woman out of the coffee shop. Curious, Sandra nodded, saying “And?”
“And then the kid realises he has to infiltrate the crime syndicate if he wants to take it down! S- So he’s torn between playing nice with the cops he’s ratting to, and his mob boss!”
“Sounds fun.” said Sandra, taking the kettle off of the stove as the water began to boil, pouring it into both mugs. She filled her mug completely, filling Irina’s mug three-quarters full.
“It- It sure is!” said Irina, heading to the fridge and taking out a carton of milk, setting it aside.
Sandra took sips of her tea, glancing at the TV. The scene had become much more sensual, with the dame that the main character rescued pressed up against him, as he curiously eyed a gun inside of a gun store that he had broken into. After three minutes had passed, Irina disposed of the teabag and placed it in the recycling bin, pouring in the milk and stirring it. Picking up the mug shakily, Irina and Sandra moved to the couch and sat down on it, simply watching the film together. About two hours in, though, a small coloured banner entered the bottom of the screen, and text began to scroll through - there was an emergency, the CEO of the media conglomerate running reruns of this neo-noir film had apparently passed away, and that - to pay respects to him - a special film reel would be played the next morning. It wasn’t as though Sandra would have watched this film, though. Nonetheless, the banner eventually faded away, the rest of the movie resuming as normal.
After it finished, Sandra finally changed out of her catsuit and into some baggy sleepwear. The film finished at 11:35PM, and - although she was a night owl who would much rather spend her time cuddling her girlfriend, watching crime thrillers, or staying on patrol, her attendance at school would only help in making her seem human. So, after a bit of tossing and turning, Sandra fell into a deep sleep, as though it was the first good rest she’d had in days.