Friday, December 11
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Dr. Ayers stood up, closing her notebook, and I heaved myself off the couch and grabbed my stuff from the coffee table in her office.
“So, in conclusion, I think you’re on the right track,” Dr. Ayers said. She handed me a few pamphlets with titles like ‘Maintaining a Healthy Superhero/Life Balance’ and ‘How to Manage Identity Issues.’ I tucked them under an arm as she kept talking. “Many supers embrace the mask full-time and let it become who they are. The hero becomes their main persona for others, with their secret identities taking a back seat. It doesn’t sound like that’s what you want, though.”
“Definitely not,” I said, laughing. The counseling session had been helpful. We’d talked about my worries, and Dr. Ayers had assured me that it was surprisingly normal and nothing to be worried about.
Still, a voice in my head kept telling me that maybe it was something to worry about in the longer term. Tele-Portal’s real identity was probably fine. She treated superhero work like a job. But even for her, the job had changed how she viewed other people, especially Extras, and I didn’t want that either. “Can we meet in early January to follow up?”
“Sure, Anika,” Dr. Ayers said. She opened the door. “I’ll call you about it later, alright?”
“Alright.”
Fursona was waiting in the, well, waiting room. I handed her the pamphlets, which she tucked into her pouch for safekeeping. “Ready for Phase Two?”
“You don’t want to know how it went?” I asked as we headed for the elevator.
“Nah, you’ll tell me on the way home or back at base. Right now, it’s time to focus up.” She pressed the button, and the elevator whisked us off to the archive. “Last time, we looked at 3V1L’s past, but we need to know everything they’ve been up to now. We’ve got two weeks for a season finale and to wrap up Sister Sly, so let’s figure out what that’s going to require.”
“Yep. We’ll figure this out.”
The elevator opened, and a familiar face dropped into a glare as he recognized us.
“The Agent. They’re still letting you into this place?” I asked, returning his angry look.
“Now, now, you know I was cleared of all wrongdoing, and your attempt at blackmail wasn’t enough to discredit me, either,” The Agent said, adjusting his suit and smoothing out his face with sheer force of will. “I’m actually just leaving. I contracted a new power for [Hire a Temp], which means new research on how it works, and I can’t just…hire a temp to do that, sadly.”
I blinked, shocked at how quickly the anger had seemed to fade and been replaced by The Agent’s snake-oil salesman persona. “Well, make sure you keep it all aboveboard this time, yeah? Wouldn’t want another embarrassment on your business record, would we?”
“I was found innocent, as I said, and I’m still one of the most trustworthy heroes in North America when it comes to stopping crime. Now, how about you two run along and let the real heroes do their jobs instead of lurking around here? I’m sure there’s a middle school villain somewhere with your names on them.”
“I don’t think I’ve seen you outside the Council building except that one time at the job fair. Do you live here?” Fursona sounded calm through her modulator.
“I have a lot of business to take care of. Some of it has to be done here,” The Agent nodded, picked up his briefcase, and slid past Fursona and me. “ And some of it elsewhere. You two stay busy, okay?”
“Always.” I kept my glare on the door until it slipped shut with a ding, then turned toward the Council of Heroes’ archives. My fists unclenched slowly, and I breathed deep, slow breaths to calm myself. “What a jerk.”
“Yeah, right? Come on, let’s focus on the goal. New 3V1L, right?” Fursona said.
“Right.”
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An hour later, with the archive close to shutting down for the day, I had to admit defeat. The shelves seemed to press in on us in the near-silence, and even though the smell of old newspapers and books should have been comforting, it only reminded me of failure.
It wasn’t that there wasn’t anything about 3V1L. It was that anything from the last three months or so was checked out for study. We’d gotten a few duplicate articles, but all they told us was that there were at least two Vs out there that Fursona and I hadn’t fought. And if there were two, there had to be more. But we couldn’t find anything definitive on their power sets, tactics, or even how many of them 3V1L had.
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“Shit,” Fursona muttered, poring over an article for the third time. I’d already read that one, too, but with most of the material checked out, we didn’t have many other options. We’d even asked the attendant about it, and he’d confirmed that a few different heroes had been in over the last couple of weeks but that things should start returning just before Christmas. That wasn’t quick enough for us.
“Yeah. Who else would have an interest in 3V1L? They’re our rogues, not someone else’s.”
I have a theory, but it’s one with no evidence,” Fursona said. “There’s gotta be another hero working on 3V1L. Maybe a local in the Poudre districts who’s trying to keep their home safe or something.”
“Makes sense, but wouldn’t we have heard about them? We’ve been pretty active there recently.” I turned a newspaper page, only to find that the article ended after one more paragraph on B13. “Ugh.”
“Yeah, this isn’t working. We’re going to have to go in blind or something. There’s no time to wait for the articles to come back. I checked Super Watch—“ Fursona was talking about the secret fan site for superheroes and villains, “—and there’s practically nothing but home videos of us fighting them. There’s no way they’re this invisible. No way.”
I pushed my chair out and stood up.
“Excuse me,” a superhero said, pointing with a gloved finger at the chair. He wore an off-white hood and a full-face mask that looked like a grinning spirit or something, and his armor almost seemed like it was glowing. More importantly, he carried a pile of books and newspapers as he headed for the archive desk.
I pushed my chair in to let him by, and he nodded politely and continued on his way. As he worked his way past me, I caught one of the books’ titles: ‘A Legacy of 3V1L: Corruption, Villainy, and the Fall of the Poudre Districts.’
An alarm bell went off in my head, and I watched as the hero walked toward the desk and parked his pile, then went back for more. I pointed and whispered to Fursona through our comm system the second he was out of earshot. “Something’s off here. That hero’s clearing out our rogue’s section. I’m going to check it out. Make sure he doesn’t leave.”
It took a minute or so to slip off to the bathroom, transform into Lucky Star, and get back to the archive, but I made it okay. I didn’t want to be too obviously Understudy while I spied on another hero, and being Lab Assistant Panic or something similar would be too uncontrollable, so Lucky Star it was. Then, creeping through the rows of shelves, I took up a position near the 3V1L shelves.
“Pre-Launch crime…3V1L’s foundations…the first Three Vs….” On and on the guy muttered as he labored through the shelves. “Fuck, there’s not much here. Already been cleaned out…”
Another alarm bell went off. He’d been so polite when he knew I was there, and now he seemed annoyed at his whole search. I got that, believe me. Fursona and I had been here for an hour, and we hadn’t found anything. But something about the hero’s whole demeanor had caught my attention, and now all those little things kept adding up.
“Fursona, something’s really off. If he heads for the front, stall him,” I whispered into my mic. “I’m going to try talking to him.”
“Got it. I’ve got a plan for that.”
I took a deep breath and rounded the corner.
“…Articles…so many articles…how long were these assholes act—uh, hello,” the hero said. He jumped back from the shelf, almost like he’d been caught doing something wrong. “How are you today?”
“I’m great,” I said, smiling as brightly as possible. “I was doing a school project on villain groups, but there’s not much here on 3V1L. Do you know why?”
It felt like an obvious ploy, but the villain nodded slowly. “I’ve noticed that, too—a lot of historical information, but anything recent’s cleared out. I’ve got a project for school, too. I won’t ask where you go—secret identities and all that.”
“Oh, if we’re not at the same school, we could work on it together, though. That way, we’re not stepping on each other’s feet.” I didn’t expect him to say yes.
The hero didn’t disappoint. “I…don’t think that’d be a good idea. My, uh, teacher is pretty strict about stuff like that. Honestly, I’m not even supposed to be here. I’m supposed to use public library resources, but this is kinda a public library. But if she finds out I’ve been here or copying other people, I’ll fail, and I don’t want that. Sorry.”
I blinked, taking a breath that I turned into a yawn to hide my shock. His personality had switched again! Instead of pressing, I smiled sadly. “Alright. I’ll keep searching. Maybe I’ll still find enough to get a B in my class.”
“Good luck,” he said and turned back to the shelf.
The rest of the walk down the shelf felt like it’d never end, but at the same time, I hadn’t gone four steps when I heard him grab something and start walking quickly toward the archive desk. I spun around and crept to the end of the shelf. His off-white cloak was still in view, so I used [Audition Notes], not expecting a response, but not having anything else to do and knowing it wouldn’t warn him.
[Audition Notes for John Doe: This Extra is…]
I blinked at that. The readout looked identical to another one I’d seen: Fred Callahan, the one-time 3V1L V whose house we’d broken into. He kept walking, squeezing past the table where Fursona sat—but as he tried to get past her chair, her tail flicked out and tripped him, and he hit the ground, sending books everywhere.
“Sorry, it’s got a mind of its own!” Fursona said, hurrying to help the hero recover his books and newspapers. When he wasn’t looking, she surreptitiously kicked one farther under the table, and I nodded.
“It’s…fine,” he muttered. The politeness he’d shown earlier was gone; instead, he sounded like he was barely holding it together. He gathered his books, choked out a “Sorry about that,” and hurried toward the desk, where the attendant waited to check out his teetering tower of books.
“You forgot one!” Fursona shouted. The attendant glared, and she put her paws over her mouth, then reached for the book. The rest of my [Audition Notes] finally came in as she did.
[Audition Notes for John Doe: This Extra is in over his head and nervous. He’s playing a dangerous game with powers that are beyond him, and it’s starting to get to him. He just wants to go home and take off the mask for the day, but he has so much to do. If someone could help him out, he’d be thankful, but he also doesn’t want help for some reason.]
[Good Thinking! +1 Cunning Point]
“What the hell does that mean?” I muttered. This whole thing kept getting more and more suspicious.