652 Reported Cases. 0 Reported Dead.
Jill, I went out on the street just to get a read on what the average Saint Century Citizen thought about not only the return of Captain Steel but also his words from last night. Funnily enough, Jill, while the majority of the Norms we spoke with today all approved of Captain Steel being back and his words, it seems a lot of them have fallen on deaf ears for the OH population. According to this flash poll, the majority of OverHumans do not think it's safe as long as you wear a mask, as both he and Lady Steel stated; one person went as far as to call Lady Steel a “sell out to capital interests.” As you’re aware, there are these wild conspiracy theories going around, and people are taking advantage…
-Jandro Simolca, panelist, Wake Up SC!
Sam Preston shot awake, filled with a roiling stomach and a cold sweat. His head hurt so bad, and he had many chills that had him huddle his arms and legs close to his body. Sam had been in this sterilized room for days but barely remembered how he got here except that, after two days of not feeling so hot, he woke up suddenly in this room on a night like tonight. In comparison, he felt better back then as opposed to now, so he assumed he was in a hospital with no reason to think otherwise.
When he came home from Millerton, the symptoms hit him one by one like slow boiling water. The headache came first, followed quickly by shortness of breath; the following day, he lacked the energy even to enter Stoptime. Jessika had spent the two days worrying and fretting over him, having never seen him so sick and worse for wear. He told her it was okay, that he was fine. He had to be fine; something more critical needed his attention.
The dead bodies from the warehouse were indeed transported to Saint Century, and Spydalow had tasked Sam with finding them while he continued to hack the desktop they had stolen. Sam wasn’t very good at technical stuff, so that was just fine for him. He talked a big game, but anytime he wanted to find something, he just plopped a term into a mainstream search engine and called it a day. Not even in an incognito session, just right there plain as day; Spyda was better off.
His last memory consisted of him lying on the couch, hyping himself up to get moving. The way his body felt had hindered his searches, and he hadn’t gotten much done. He remembered feeling determined to overcome the lethargy and do something useful. He must have passed out not long after that.
He awoke in this place, in a hospital bed with various machinery up against the wall and an IV drip connected to his arm. Numerous other wires fed from him into a machine that kept track of his vitals. The steady beeping from the heart monitor would sometimes lull him back into a haze-filled sleep in which he dreamed some more of masked men invading his home. That was just a nightmare, surely—a Flu induced nightmare.
The room was a rounded oval with glass walls. Someone with a gun stood outside and never once looked in. Sam sometimes tried to picture their face and came up with something abstract. His head continued to bump like an EDM trance beat. His throat felt like ground-up glass, and suddenly he had the urge to cough loudly.
Beyond the room was a single desk where a nurse sat. Their head perked up once the coughing started. She was a beautiful woman wearing a doctor's coat, blonde hair, and yellow eyes; she was tall. Even from his bed, Sam was sure she’d tower over him. She swiped a card at a reader by the door, and it slid open. She held a tablet and studied it as she walked in. Sam tried to look at her, but the coughing scrambled his brain.
“Good morning,” she said softly. She reached for a tube connected to the IV bag and pulled a small injector out of her coat pocket. “This will suppress the cough,” she pressed the needle into an injection port and pulled the trigger. The wave of euphoria was instant. Felt like he’d been blasted full of opioids and other painkillers. Sam sunk into the bed like it was quicksand.
“Everything will be alright.”
----------------------------------------
Anti-OH demonstrators clashed with counter-protesters multiple times today. Rumors abound across the net that the death toll and infected tallies were wrong. Some would point to the long-since discredited VOD live streams from Spydalow as proof that people have died from the disease, yet all that's done is push them further fringe. Still, some businesses have become proactive by refusing to allow OH’s to use their good and services.
Out in the black, some shuttle companies refuse to board OverHumans, whether masked or not. It was a slowly simmering powder keg everywhere; Roxanne was concerned. The concept that this was a part of the universe attempting to assert balance, like she suspects of this new Captain Steel, slowly became irrelevant. She spent many an hour doom scrolling across social media and felt ashamed when she just as often had to admonish Grandmother Millie for doing the same.
She felt helpless. For all her phenomenal powers and wisdom, she had no way to help genuinely. A disease like this has never occurred throughout history; again, faced with being the first of the line to experience something, it was getting tiresome. Roxanne, perched on the stool behind the Lucha Pawn’s counter, purposely ignored the slate in front of her. She refused to scroll while there was a lull in customers. Chris took a stand and did not enact any anti-OH policy for their store; business has slowed.
That was fine; Chris would rather be decent and poor than a rich, garbage person. It fed into how they carried themselves in all aspects of life, and Roxanne admired that, having come to the same ethos as she’s grown up and wielded the Cyntaff. Chris was on the other side of the store fixing the displays. Items were moved from one end to another without much care by customers, a daily ritual at this point. They wore a white dress shirt with a black vest and dress pants combo that had Roxanne swoon the first time she’d ever seen them in that. Roxanne, for her part, was wearing distressed jeans and a long-sleeved shirt with her sun symbol on it. One of the many bootlegs one could find down here in south Saint Century, she loved that she owned it.
Roxanne worried about Sam, who still had not surfaced. Shortly after encountering that conspiracy theorist, she and Athena retold how it all went down to Corina. Corina’s heard of Spydalow and interacted with him on one occasion when she had gone down to the Bay. She didn’t say anything about the claims made; she just took the information in and vowed to keep looking for him. Roxanne expected her to come by around store closing to investigate together.
Days removed from that, Roxanne considered the possibility that Spyda was right and the ICG had taken Sam because he was sick. A conversation with Central One yielded no answers, but she didn’t exactly believe the machine either way. As impassive as it appeared, as objective as it seemed, it still served the interests of those that made it, and people like the Shaws and the Gibsons being at the head of it all made her more likely to distrust the AI, not less.
“Earth to Roxanne,” Chris had appeared behind the counter with her. She felt snapped out of a dream and smiled up at them.
“Did I space again?” She asked. Chris nodded and sat down on the stool next to her. Roxanne watched them rifle through hard copies left over by the courier companies they used to ship items out. Some companies prided themselves on only offering paper invoices. Since it was expensive to make paper and not cost-effective, such services were offered at an insane markup.
Chris justified it because that was par for the course when dealing with upper-crust clientele. They wanted to buy real tangible objects and paid even more for the experience of paper receipts. For these people, having actual books or magazines, and yes, paper receipts, was seen as a status symbol; it meant you had credits to burn. It made for good business.
Roxanne admired the way Chris’s curly mop fell across their eye perfectly no matter what; she was jealous. Half the reason she did this current haircut was that it didn’t require much maintenance once set (and she didn’t get it wet). Honestly, Roxanne hated her hair and almost chopped it all off; it made her feel like a child. Anytime she looked in the mirror or caught her reflection, she still felt like 16 years old. The uniform didn’t help, either. Until she cut her hair, it seemed like time had stopped for her.
“…are you listening?” Chris had asked her. She blinked twice and suddenly felt embarrassed.
“I’m sorry! What were you saying?”
“It’s not important,” Chris replied. “Is it the balance thingy that’s got you all not here?”
“It’s always the ‘balance thingy,’” she replied with a smile. She scootched the stool closer to Chris and then laid her head on their shoulder. Chris responded by laying their head on her; it felt nice. Everything felt lovely when she was with Chris, which is why they probably spent so much time together lately. She was doing what she did best; hiding from it.
Roxanne, Millie would like to know if you and Chris are coming for dinner this evening.
She almost immediately said no, as she still had plans with Corina, but a home-cooked meal sounded interesting. She had spent the last two nights with Chris, and they usually got takeout for dinner.
“You up for dinner with grams?” She asked.
“Sure, beats Mister Joel’s again.”
“You keep that slander out of your mouth,” Roxanne giggled and sent off that they would be there tonight but not until she was done with Corina. Speaking of, the bell on the door rang as it opened. Both looked up to catch Lady Steel walking in. She was wearing an oversized brown sweater and leggings with a scarf wrapped around her neck and covering her mouth.
Piggybacking off her own words, given last night, she went masked everywhere. She slowly lowered it down from her nose, let it rest upon her chin, walked over to the displays, and started perusing the merch.
If you stumble upon this tale on Amazon, it's taken without the author's consent. Report it.
“Can we help you miss?” Roxanne asked aloud.
“Hmm,” Corina started. “I’m not sure; I hear this place caters to OverHumans.” She stopped what she was doing and made her way to the counter.
“Yes, and as you can see,” Roxanne replied. “It’s done wonders.” Corina’s features softened. She made eye contact with Chris and felt sympathetic.
“I’m sorry people suck,” Corina told them and was met with a resigned shrug.
“Tale as old as time,” Chris said; it was hard to argue.
The three of them continued talking as the operation's final hour whittled away. Corina was so happy that her friend had found someone they cared about. Truthfully, she almost lived vicariously through it. Corina Kyle hadn’t had a personal relationship that had lasted beyond a month in nearly 20 years. She didn’t care for things like relationships, love, or anything else. A few years back, it was brought to her attention that she might be ace, but she didn’t feel that fit her quite right. Indeed, there had been times she craved a physical connection with someone; they were just fleeting. Did that mean she wasn’t? She didn’t know.
“You said you spoke with Central One, didn’t you, Rox?” Corina inquired. Roxanne nodded as she doodled a scary stick figure man on the slate in front of her with her finger.
“And you didn’t like what you heard?” Corina continued.
“It felt very gas-lighty to me,” Roxanne replied. Corina let the silence fill the air while she tapped her gloved hands on the countertop.
“Did it tell you Sam came to see it?” Corina asked; Roxanne dropped the stylus at this and leaned forward.
“You’re kidding?” She asked. Corina shook her head.
“I had to find that out myself; it didn’t tell me either.”
“I thought you guys trusted that thing?” Chris had asked them both.
“I mean, I do,” Corina replied. “We’ve done a lot of good work together, and this isn’t the first time it’s compartmentalized something it didn’t feel I should know.”
“Why did Sam go see it?” Roxanne asked.
“He had questions about Spydalow.”
Roxanne felt herself get hot. Ever since he escaped and—let's be honest—humiliated her and Athena, she intensely disliked him. It was purely a pride thing, but she also thought the guy was a little touched in the head.
“That freaking guy….” She started.
“Breathe, babe.” Chris reached over and rubbed her back.
“It was about the video,” Corina said.
“The one everyone thinks is fake?”
“Mmhmm,” Corina nodded. “We need to find him, but his socials are dark. Is there any way you can track him?”
Roxanne thought about this. Theoretically, she could comb The Bleednet—or rather Azonne could—and see if he’s left any digital footprints anywhere.
“I can try.”
Roxanne climbed down from the stool and sat cross-legged on the floor. She shut her eyes and was transported instantly to her mind palace; Azonne was waiting for her. The walls had healed since the gravitational storm, and all was peaceful in the void beyond them. Still sitting cross-legged, the entire room melted away and left Roxanne floating within the thick red energy that made up The Bleed. Azonne walked up next to her and made three diamond-shaped icons appear around her.
“I have three places this Spydalow could be at currently,” they said. Each point represented various pockets of information that made up the entire Bleednet. The Azonne avatar brushed a strand of hair out of its face as if that mattered here. Not that Roxanne wasn’t prone to doing the same sort of thing; the mind palace was as real as one made it.
Azonne continued:
“He’s briefly appeared online at these locations, no doubt trying to piggyback off the subspace emitters nearby to check The Bleednet. For someone supposedly on the run from the government, he’s sloppy.”
“He said he was sick,” Roxanne said, eyes still shut. The energy of the universe tickled her atoms. The mind palace was crucial in times like this; it helped her feel whole and recharged.
“Ah, that would explain his next two stops. This one,” and the view before Roxanne spun toward the right, shifting the icon. “…is near a clinic run by a well-known black market medic who only works with—shall we say?—the criminal element.”
----------------------------------------
Spydalow’s lungs were on fire. Running up walls, flipping over stuff, kicking things—and faces—was exhausting even without the shortness of breath. His head felt split in two, and his nose felt on fire, irritated, and congested. Just getting to the roof of this building had him huffing harder than an asthmatic, and while he lay on his back, he started counting the stars in the sky while he let his heart slow a little.
He was beyond convinced he had caught whatever the news was talking about. He pulled the mask off his mouth and sat up. This building was formally a six-vehicle garage with many other uses over the decades. Once, it was a school for the poorest citizens. When that went belly up, it used to house a predatory payday loan business complete with a staging area should the private mercenaries they hired need to be deployed.
Now it was a clinic for those who lived off the grid. For those who needed robotics and cybernetics work done but didn’t have the liquid capital for, or for when you need a pick me up to get you where you were going before you keeled over. The clinic was run by an Ex-soldier whose only known alias was Jane Bombshell. After one of the wars, she bought the building up from the loan sharks and turned this into a medical clinic where money wasn’t always required. Bartering was the game's name; trade goods or favors; it was all welcome.
Jane Bombshell had her own security force that she paid for, unlike the previous tenants. They even had their own cute name, too: The Scream Queens. All of them hated his guts. They contracted his services for a job in Millerton Bay a couple of years back. Jane had a younger sister who had run afoul of some local knuckleheads, and she wanted her back. Figuring this would be excellent content, Spyda agreed.
Of course, the whole thing was a fiasco. The entire op was botched from the word go because the gang in question knew Spyda was coming; they were subscribers. The whole mess was in the top fails of the month compilation for years until the producers were forced to retire the bit. The gang got away; the sister went with them; Jane wasn’t happy.
Spyda, being who he is, wasn’t just going to show his face here; he was going to break in. Feeling a touch better, he put the mask back around his mouth and made his way to the roof's edge. Spyda wasn’t super familiar with how Saint Century worked, but he knew enough to be dangerous. This part of town was south South Saint Century, and cops never came here. So, if it came to that, any noise made wouldn’t be that much of a big deal.
Industrial buildings stretched out before him as far as the eyes could see. He stepped off the roof and altered the personal gravity of his lower half, continuing walking off the roof and down the wall as if he were simply rounding a corner. Reaching the top set of windows, Spyda got flat on his belly and peeked over the lip of the window sill.
Huddled around a desk were 3 of the scream queens plus Jane. Jane wore an olive green sweater and military khaki BDUs. A bandolier with multitudes of round baseball-sized grenades was wrapped around her chest, and Spyda thought they looked like his and wondered if they shrunk too. Jane had a cowl that usually covered her entire face except for her eyes, but it was now down and flaccid behind her neck. The other three women wore thick armor segmented at the joints; the neck area had a locking mechanism for a helmet to click into place; those sat on boxes beside them.
Spyda could ID them with their helmets down, so he called up a couple of old fluff pieces about the squad. The one on the left was Lilly St. Cloud, a pale-skinned brunet who originally came from a well-to-do family until the matriarch got caught embezzling funds from multiple fictional charities into homeless outreach. The center one, the redhead, was Ripley Johnson. She had yellowish skin, a black heart tattooed on her left cheek, and always wore a small bandaid under the other. Supposedly she served with Jane in the war, but neither of them was willing to confirm nor deny.
Finally, on the right was a bronze-skinned amazon with a thick black afro named Omela Santo. It’s been claimed that she was from the neighborhood, walked right up to Jane after she had moved in, and just asked for a job. Hard to say no to that if true. The four women seemed to be casually chatting with one another, and the headache came roaring back. He found it hard to concentrate. He slipped. Just slightly.
Omela saw it. The shouting and screaming began almost immediately. He shook his head clear of the fog and just figured, the hell with it. Spyda lifted himself upon his hands, anchored himself to the wall, then used the momentum to swing his legs toward the glass window. It shattered inward.
“It totally is Spydalow!” Jane shouted. “I owe you a credit!”
Spyda spun horizontally and continued his momentum toward the group of women. Two beads ejected from his palm, expanded, and were thrown in a flourish. They exploded in mid-air. Fast-acting adhesive shot outward and stuck Jane and the Scream Queens into the walls. Spyda continued his momentum, but he didn’t stick the landing. Instead, he crashed hard and sprawled out on the floor, followed by a coughing fit.
“Mother F—I swear if you’re sick,” Jane spat, humiliated by a damn bleedcaster. Honestly. Spyda let the fit pass before he got up to one knee. He huffed.
“Need…shot of…Drenoall,” he puffed.
“Gresh,“ Jane grunted. “You think that hasn’t been tried already?”
“You…have infected?”
“Downstairs. Up here was strictly quarantined, you ass.” Spyda shut his eyes, thankful they couldn’t be seen behind the lenses.
“Shit,” he breathed.
“Yeah,” she breathed in deeply and hocked a big wad of spit at his feet.
“It buys them some time, yeah?”
“Depends on how bad they got it,” she replied. “You don’t look so good, chief.”
“Where is it? I just need a push to get the info I need. I’m gonna bust this wide open.” Jane watched him through narrow eyes. His face was red, and his shoulders pumped vertically. Eventually, she closed them and heaved air out through her nostrils.
“Second cabinet behind you, it’s cold storage. Code is 1337.”
“Seriously?”
“Shut up; how long does this crap last?”
“An hour.”
----------------------------------------
“Police surveillance from the area captured him leaving the building 10 minutes later.“
“His last check-in?” Roxanne wondered. Again the scene shifted to the final diamond waypoint.
“He turned on his social media but didn’t make a post.”
“Odd. Where is he now, then?”
“I tapped into other surveillance drones in the area and caught glimpses of him here and there, enough to estimate his direction. I believe he’s going here,” another screen opened in the void showing a run-down warehouse that was missing its top two floors.
“What is that?”
“Hold on,” Azonne said. “Interesting.”
“What?”
“The plot of land this building sits on is owned by a company called Damarco Intergalactic. If I may, Roxanne, I took the liberty of hacking into Sam Preston’s cloud storage; I was also worried about him.”
“That’s…really sweet!” Roxanne was genuinely happy to hear that. “Like…wow.”
“Ahem, yes…” The Azonne avatar looked away momentarily and perhaps blushed. “Anyway, Mr. Preston had searched for that company multiple times before disappearing.”
“That’s as good a lead as any,” Roxanne felt her entire sense of self switch back into the real. Her eyes flew open, and she was back on the store floor. She looked up, and Chris was staring at her with their mouth slightly open and eyebrows raised.
“Do I look weird when I do that?” Roxanne asked, suddenly self-conscious.
“No!” Chris responded. “No. You look…beautiful.” Roxanne blushed; Corina felt second-hand embarrassment by all this puppy love.
“So, guess what?” She asked Roxanne and offered her hand. Roxanne took it and was lifted easily to her feet. She dusted off her jeans and caught Chris checking her out. She stuck her tongue out in response.
“What’s up?” Roxanne asked. Corina sent her an image from her gallery. It was a screenshot of a DM from the handle SpYdAlOw505. It was the address of the building Roxanne had just found, and he wanted to meet.
“He freaking DM’d you?” Roxanne couldn’t believe it.
“Yep,” Corina replied and brushed a knuckle against her nose. “I’m headed out there; come with?” Roxanne looked from Corina and then back to Chris; thoughts of a home-cooked meal filled her senses.
“Would you hate me if I bowed out? Grams cooking calls, you know?”
“Oof, say no more,” Corina smiled and hugged her. “I’ll let you know what happens. Unlike some people I know, I probably won't have any trouble.” She grinned and left the store. Roxanne and Chris stood so close to each other that they could kiss, but they didn’t. It felt euphoric this close yet, somehow, not close enough—atoms apart.
“You sure you want to miss that?” Chris asked her. Roxanne lowered he eyelids and smiled.
“No place I’d rather be.”