After the week I had, having an entire weekend to relax was pure bliss.
Sam and I decided to stay over seeing as we had kicked the hornet's nest. I woke up at her place early and freshened up a bit before heading home and focusing on the equipment I wanted to enhance. My armor, pistol, Sam’s costume, and the car were my top priorities with tools for my eventual workshop coming later.
Saturday and Sunday drifted harmlessly by and gave me the time to mess with my gear. Seeing as I had no use for the phone that had been stolen from me anymore, I decided to repurpose it by integrating it into my helmet.
The end result was a HUD with all of the functions of my old phone. Now the design all but screamed Mechatech. There were a couple of challenges, namely upgrading the UI so I could access most of the new features. Voice commands, eye tracking, and basic neural scanning left me sparse of charges on Saturday.
So I shifted gears on Sunday and worked on Sam’s costume along with my weapon before dropping both off at her place that night. On Monday morning, I started on some more complex upgrades to my phone and laptop while packing up my things for school. Security and hacking programs, raw processing power, and interfaces. If I was going to break into Deadlock’s tech this century, I was going to need to start now.
Upon arriving, I was reminded of Sam’s words about the gangs having an influence here, especially among the staff. I felt it was necessary to keep my eyes open to try and spot anything but I wasn’t going to hold out any hope. If someone was hiding something, they’d be damn good at it considering they’ve been managing to operate right under the nose of the ECU.
“Yo, Geekius Maximumus.”
Lifting my head from my hand, I looked over to the seat next to me.
“Tinkerbell.”
“Screw you,” Abby’s reply was non-committed and tired. “I forgot my textbook. Share yours?”
I shrugged and slid the book over.
“Thanks.”
“Idiots causing trouble again?” I wondered aloud. “Doubt it was Junkmonger and Techies. Three times in one week would be a new record for those clowns.”
She snorted and shook her head.
“Nah. Not them. I’ll give you the deets when we move onto practical.”
Theory in Chemistry was exceptionally boring and everyone was always itching to move on to the practical. Abby and I listened idly for around fifteen minutes before the teacher instructed us to move to another page in our textbook and begin following the instructions. With our lab coats and safety glasses on, we started going through the motions.
“New rookie signed on yesterday, so we had a meet and greet this morning.”
“A new one?” I said, surprised. “Who are they?”
Abby slipped her phone out of her pocket and flipped through her gallery of photos until she landed on a team photo that had been taken this morning. It featured all five of the Bayside rookies including herself, plus their new addition.
Abby was on the far left and was the only one unmasked. Then there was Seer, Seraphim, Tricky, Copycat, and…
I stared at the new figure of the group and felt my brow rise slightly. In my peripherals, I could see her trying and failing to hold back a grin.
“Yeah, I know right? Wild.”
“Is that a tail?”
“Authentic and fluffy,” she chuckled. “And I thought Katastrophe won the Morpher lottery. They’re the runner-ups now.”
I narrowed my eyes at the sixth member. Atop her head were a pair of pointed animal ears that to me, seemed distinctly vulpine. What gave it away was the large bushy tail protruding from her lower back. It reminded me of a fox. There were other Morphers across the world whose bodies had been affected by their awakening.
Arachnid – who was active somewhere in Greece – was half-spider. Tempest often spoke about the struggles in keeping his human form from ripping apart into a violent storm. Katastrophe was a J-Pop group made up of a family that all shared the characteristics of various cats. Morphers being unable to control how their bodies change wasn’t unheard of, but it was far from common. To see one active in Bayside was surprising.
“What’s her name?”
“Prosperity.”
Interesting name.
I wondered if Sam knew anything about the new rookie. It would be good to know since our little duet was more than likely labeled villains or vigilantes. We’d likely run into the rookies at some point. “Don’t think I’ve heard of someone by that name, especially someone who looks like that,” I noted her costume looked rushed. There was a two-dollar shop fox mask, some loose-fitting clothes, and sneakers.
“She must be new.”
“Awoke with her powers last week. She’s been cooped up inside stressing about school and what to do. So her parents called HQ and registered her,” Abby explained. “She won’t be going back to school until she learns how to control her powers, or until she finds a way to conceal them. But we’ll be able to help there, that’s right up Nanoforge’s alley, so I’m not worried.”
“She could just own it,” I shrugged, giving her a pointed look. “Like how you do.”
“Poor girl doesn’t have the confidence to pull it off. You should have seen her when she walked through HQ’s doors. She was shaking like a leaf,” Abby sighed. “Besides, I can get away with it because I’m a bitch to everyone who looks at me weirdly.”
I had the rather intrusive thought that she’d get along great with Sam.
“So, any news about Bonesmith?”
Abby gave me a strange look.
“Eh, not really. Why?”
“He was the guy chasing whoever stole my car,” I said. She frowned for a moment before realization struck her. Her mouth dropped open and I just nodded. “Yeah, same guy. The Police never got back to me so I was wondering what happened to the guy.”
“Oh, shit. That was your car?” Abby slapped her forehead. “Huh, what’re the chances of that? Yeah, uh… I don’t know. I’m not really involved in the whole ‘capture and containment’ thing. I just beat up bad guys and smile at whatever camera happens to be pointed at me.”
Bonesmith and Banshee had seen my face, same with Mirage. From that, I could gauge my identity was compromised after the Cains had pursued me at the mall. Just another reason to get them all locked up, but I was curious to see if Bonesmith had spilled who he had been chasing to the ECU. However, seeing as I hadn’t had the ECU at my front door, I assumed he had kept his mouth shut.
“He hasn’t said anything while in custody?”
Abby shrugged.
“I dunno. Why are you asking me? Do you really think the higher-ups tell the rookies anything? I didn’t even know Prosperity was joining until she walked into HQ.”
I didn’t like not knowing if I was safe or not. There was no way to tell if the ECU were keeping an eye on me and from the sounds of it, even if they did learn anything they wouldn’t tell Abby. Maybe Sam might be able to figure out more with Gold.
“I thought maybe he’d know who stole my car.”
“Oh,” Abby’s expression turned awkward. “Sorry. We might’ve known more if the security cameras didn’t malfunction.”
I resisted the urge to laugh.
I didn’t have much of a choice there. Sorry, Abby.
“Really?”
“Something like that, it’s totally weird. Some of our best techies couldn’t recover any footage. Total system failure and everything got corrupted. Our mentalists say there was a Mechakinetic involved but the Cains shouldn’t have anyone like that.”
Had I done that? I knew I had remotely hacked them to shut them off before they could see me or Sam but that shouldn’t have corrupted the footage.
“That’s strange…” I trailed off, reaching into my bag. “...and very convenient.”
“If something is convenient, then there’s no doubt it was a calculated move,” Abby said like she was reciting a lecture she had heard a million times. “It’s the first thing they teach you. Always be ready for the unexpected. Never get comfortable. If something seems too easy, then there’s something you're missing.”
Excellent advice.
I pulled out my phone and typed a quick message to Sam.
“You don’t think your Mentalist guys would be able to figure out who took my car?” I asked, curious. I had to add some artificial hope into my voice to make it at least seem like I was worried about whether or not I’d get it back.
Abby gave a tired shrug.
“Overwatch won’t say anything, which is typical. Higher-ups don’t like her sharing sensitive details with us rookies because we have, and I quote: ‘A tendency to act without considering the consequences.’ The best I can give you is a guess made by Seer. It was a gang dispute. Someone pissed off the Cains. Recruitment gone wrong… a super messing around in their territory or stealing from them. The list goes on, and without anything solid to go off of, there isn’t much he can do.”
Pissed off was one way to put it.
Wait a minute…
“Was Bonesmith the only one?”
“Hmm? As far as we can tell, yeah. He’s the only one we brought in.” Abby gave me a strange look. “Why, do you know something?”
If they didn’t find Banshee, then she must have escaped.
I shook my head.
“Nah, I was just curious.”
“Max,” Abby said, lowering her voice to a whisper. She leaned closer to me to make sure nobody else would overhear what she had to say. “If you know something you kinda have to tell me.”
“I don't, that's why I was asking,” I dismissed with a wave. “I just thought that if Bonesmith was there then maybe there would have been another. Supers don’t usually work by themselves, right?”
Abby frowned.
“Not in my experience. Villains always tend to work in groups or pairs, unless you're Grim or Liberation.”
My phone buzzed with a response from Sam.
“Right. Thanks, and let me know if you guys find anything,” I said.
Abby smiled at me.
“Sure. I’ll even put in a good word for you since it was your car those jerks took.”
I peered over at my phone.
Sam: My best guess is that it was a third party looking to take advantage of the chaos for their own means. There’s an independent around, goes by the name Uplink. You shutting off those cameras probably did us a huge favor. I really don’t want to deal with an unknown figuring us out. The Cains are bad enough.
You: Do you think our private lives are safe from them?
This narrative has been purloined without the author's approval. Report any appearances on Amazon.
Sam: Not sure. It’s hard to say but Gold believes that they don’t have the means to figure out who we are. They know our faces but not our names. Stop stressing, once we’ve dealt with them, they’ll have bigger things to worry about than who we are.
You: I’m not stressing. I’m just in class with Comet and she brought it up. I was asking if Bonesmith had said anything after he got captured.
Sam: What???
Sam: Max, omfg please shut up.
Sam: Don’t say ANYTHING ELSE to her.
Sam: Dumbass, you could get us busted!!
You: Hey, relax. I told you she’s a friend. It’s fine.
Sam: She’s also a rookie, you idiot! One word to the Mentalists on base and they could figure out what you're doing. It wasn’t hard for me to scout you with Gold. Someone like Overwatch could sniff you out if they get suspicious. Even Seer could pin you with the right information.
The hairs on the back of my neck stood on end as I slowly raised my head and looked over toward Abby. She was messing around with some beakers while reading the textbook we were sharing. I thought about what she had just said, then what Sam had just texted me.
“Hey, you don’t have to do that.”
Abby gave me a confused look.
“What? It says to add 50mls of distilled water—”
“No, not that,” I chuckled weakly. “Putting in a good word for me at HQ. The car’s probably long gone so you shouldn’t stress about it. Plus, we’re getting a replacement anyway.”
“You… just said you liked that car.”
I rubbed my neck awkwardly, trying to think up a reason for her to drop the whole thing.
“Yeah, but who knows what’s happened to it since. Pretty sure I heard there were guns and crap involved while it was being chased down the motorway,” I reasoned. “It’s probably fucked and insurance will write it off anyway.”
Abby pursed her lips before shrugging.
“Alright, if you're sure.”
The rest of the class went about as usual.
When the bell rang for lunch, I had a brief encounter with Pete and his crew that just ended up turning into a staring contest when Abby walked out of class behind me. It was almost funny just how the atmosphere changed when she was around. It was interesting to note that Lucy was right, Pete did seem like he was out to get me.
After school, I had to catch two buses to get to Sam’s place. Frustrating but necessary for the time being.
When I walked into the underground garage, I found my car tucked away in a nice corner out of sight from the street. Sam had put a sheet over it in case anyone stumbled down here and saw it. Neither of us wanted the place to be swarmed with ECU because someone saw a giant floating bubble of discolored liquid. From the shape of the tarp, I could tell it had finished, which meant everything else should be as well.
Walking over, I pulled off the sheet and was greeted by a sight that made me smile.
[2023 Horizon Alter MK IV]
The overall cost for this had been seventy charges but since I had other projects to work on, I had decided to underpay and only spend one charge per upgrade for a total of fifteen. It wasn’t urgent and Fifty-five hours wasn’t all that long to wait for such a beautiful car.
The slick black paint glittered under the garage’s fluorescent lights. The windows were smooth and clean, freshly repaired from the damage they had sustained earlier in the week. Even the tires looked brand new, which is exactly what I had hoped for. It no longer resembled a black Sedan anymore, instead, it looked like a multi-million dollar Ferrari.
My hand brushed the side of the vehicle and I was hit with several new trees of options I hadn’t seen before.
3D Environment Building, Automated Diagnostics, and Automated Repair were some of the newly available options to choose from. They were, however, quite expensive, costing more than fifteen per. But for now, what we had would suit our needs.
I tossed the sheet back over and made my way upstairs, avoiding the janky elevator entirely.
When I walked through the door to Sam’s apartment, I was greeted by her spinning around on her desk chair, wearing my helmet and making noises akin to a police siren. It should say something that I wasn’t totally taken off-guard, seeing as this was something I could see Pink doing but when she lifted the helmet off, I saw blue.
“Very cool!” Sam gave me a cheeky look. “Sorry, I couldn’t help myself. It’s not often I get to play around with Mechatech.”
“It’s barely Mechatech, but I’m glad you’re enjoying yourself,” I replied with an easy smile. I trusted her enough to be careful with my things and not break them, as long as she was normal and not any other color.
“How are you feeling?”
“All better. See?” She pointed to where she had gotten shot. With the simple black tank top, it was easy to see where she had gotten shot. The stitches were healing nicely and the scar was barely visible. Incredible for only three days of rest.
“Pink can be a bit much sometimes, but she does come with her perks.”
A part of me wished I had accelerated healing. It would make life a lot less stressful.
“Nice. I assume everything is done? Had a peek at the car and I’m happy with how it turned out.”
“Yeah, everything’s done. The helmet finished first, then your gun. I haven’t checked on the car yet ‘cause I haven’t been out today, but my costume finished about thirty minutes ago,” Sam said, walking into her room and fetching the outfit.
If you weren’t looking for it, you’d probably miss the slight changes, there was a light sheen and shine to the black fabric that almost made it seem like metal. When she gave the costume a light pull to test its elasticity, the material offered virtually no resistance.
“Good as new! I even tested out its resistance earlier. Exactly like you said, nothing small is going to put holes in these babies,” she grinned like a child on Christmas Eve. “I can’t tell you how relieved I am to not have to worry about getting shot with this thing on.”
I gave her a pointed look.
“It still won’t protect your shoulders. It’s a corset. Everything above your chest is bare and I’m sure Gold agrees with me as well.”
Sam pouted.
I hated to be the one to kill her vibe but my upgrade wouldn’t solve her problem. Even if she had my upgrades before our little scouting mission she’d still have been out for the last few days.
“Ugh, fine. Yes, Gold has pointed out that I need more protection,” Sam grumbled. “I just can’t find anything I like that matches the outfit.”
“You're worried about your costume matching?” I said, barely containing my disbelief. “You’re the last person I expected to care about that. No matter how good you look, it won’t stop you from getting shot in the head– or the shoulder for that matter.”
“I don’t need to be lectured, Max,” Sam glared, pointing to her forehead. “I have enough of that going on in there. I don’t need it coming from out here.”
“I’m just saying.”
“I will think up a solution to that problem when I feel like it,” she stated, giving me a clear indication that this topic of conversation was over. You’d think with a super intellect like hers, she’d find something more practical to be stubborn over.
“Anyway, come and have a look at this. You should probably see this before we commit to anything else.”
She led me over to a laptop that was sitting on the kitchen counter. She had opened a page for a basic guide to Indian cuisine. I was about to point out that I was a pretty decent cook and I didn’t need to read online guides until she tabbed into a different window.
“Downloaded this from Supers and Metas Online before it got taken down. Someone posted something pretty scary in the Bayside forum. Look,” she opened the file and a video started playing.
I recognized the location.
It was Bayside’s Maritime Museum, down by the harbor.
It had been swallowed up by Pandora and the rest of their religious fanatics when they rolled into town over a decade ago. They converted into some sort of church for them to conduct their weird rituals or orgies or whatever the hell they did. The room was filled with people and I spotted one or two notable Pandora supers.
Red Flare wore her signature plain red spandex and matching cape while the other, Chiller, was surrounded by his trademark frosty mist, covered from head to toe in a thick layer of ice that he was somehow able to move in.
The two were standing off to the side, watching the proceedings as the preacher stood in front of a crowd. The audio was surprisingly good, what wasn’t surprising was the sermon. He spoke of Pandora’s philosophies and their beliefs, that humanity had been given a gift – a gift from the divines. That ‘normals’ should look up to those blessed by the divines and follow them without question. That the moon-touched were the chosen leaders of humanity.
It was nuts, utterly deranged garbage.
“Unsubscribe,” I muttered, giving Sam a bored look. She returned it with a look of agreement. “What exactly are we looking for?”
“Just keep watching.”
Another fifteen seconds passed, then all the lights in the room flickered and died before all the candles evaporated into smoke. The camera shifted automatically into a night vision setting just in time to see a wave of shadow sweep through the crowd of people. It covered everything and I heard… gurgling.
It was unsettling and as quick as it all came, it vanished. The phone clattered to the floor and faced the ceiling. Everything was silent. No voices, no gurgling, no cries for help. Nothing.
Then, the sound of footsteps.
They got closer.
A figure appeared in the view of the camera, the up angle only showing the upper torso. It was an old, bald, Asian man. He wore tiny, shaded glasses, along with a garb I would have guessed belonged to a Buddhist monk if they weren’t charcoal black. He was only in frame for about two seconds before he calmly moved to the right, out of frame.
“YOU FUCKING BASTA–!”
The voice had come from Red Flare, but she hadn’t even managed to finish her sentence. The visceral sound of her being torn to shreds was the last thing I heard before the video abruptly ended.
I looked at Sam.
“Was that—?”
“Grim? Yeah,” she trailed off. “That happened last night.”
Grim had powers that manifested as physical darkness and shadow, that much everyone knew. What exactly those shadows did was anyone's guess. If the ECU knew more, they had never released the information publicly. It never stopped the endless speculation online and there was a laundry list of theories to pick from. I had never seen footage of his powers before and now that I had, I wasn’t sure what to make of it.
“Okay…” I trailed off. “So he attacked a Pandora gathering.”
“Mirage wasn’t lying when he said something was coming. This isn’t reactionary, this was premeditated. Grim’s sending a message,” Sam explained, her voice betraying a fraction of fear. “He’s not pulling any punches either. I don’t think he left any survivors.”
I stared back at the video, aghast.
“He killed all those people?”
It was brazen, unnecessarily cruel. A hurricane of violence set in motion. Pandora wouldn’t take this lying down and Liberation would be rallying everyone to retaliate.
Sam was chewing her nails, transfixed on the screen with a deep, thoughtful expression.
“Historically, the Cains have clashed with Pandora over territory, that’s nothing new, but Grim pulling something like this is. He’s never been this forward. Gold Rush, Nemesis, and Banshee were always the ones doing the dirty work…” she trailed off. Shaking her head, she got back on track. “Grim’s always been the one playing behind the scenes. Gold was convinced during our encounter with Mirage that he was also pulling some strings but after that, she’s convinced he’s just playing his own little game.”
I sneered and leaned back from the laptop screen, running a hand through my hair.
“Why does that not surprise me?”
“I’m almost certain Grim’s aware of his disloyalty,” Sam said, sounding sure of that assumption. “That's why I’m trying to make sense of this. Something like this has to be premeditated, but with Bonesmith captured, Banshee injured, and Nemesis incapacitated, Grim’s at a disadvantage.”
“The guy allegedly faced down Ajax. Are you sure he’s at a disadvantage?”
“If Pandora focused all their firepower on him, they’d probably win. For certain though, it’ll be a bloodbath.”
“Are you saying it would take all of Pandora’s supers to take him down?” I stared at her, confused. How exactly was she planning on dismantling the Cains when someone like Grim was leading them? “How are we supposed to fight that?”
“It’s very simple. We don’t.”
I blinked.
“You’ve lost me.”
“Not every fight needs to be taken head-on. Come on, Max. This is basic warfare.”
“What the hell do they teach you at Eastworth?”
“Stop being pedantic,” Sam rolled her eyes. “Look, we can take down the Cains — and by extension Grim—by backing him into a corner. Cut off his resources, whittle away his power base, and minimize his influence. Sure, he’s stronger than us, but his underlings are a different story. We’ve already bested Nemesis, Banshee, and Bonesmith. That’s half their roster. Whatever Mirage is doing… we can manage.”
“Banshee underestimated me and paid for it. If she’s smart, she won’t give me an opportunity next time,” I pointed out. “Sure I took out Nemesis but you can’t deny that I was incredibly lucky, we still don’t know what Mirage is doing and we ran away from Bonesmith.”
Sam narrowed her eyes.
“Are you—”
“No,” I cut her off. “I’m just pointing out that we aren’t strong enough to take them out, we’ve got to find—” I paused for a moment, lingering on a thought that had been in the back of my mind. “—unless… you’re playing the long game and banking on me building an arsenal. Achievable, yes, but it would take a while.”
Sam chuckled. “Neither of us are patient enough for that.”
“So what’s the plan then? You want to back Grim into a corner which will result in him either lashing out or running away, the latter of which he doesn’t have a reputation for,” I stopped and waited for her to interject but received no reply. “I don’t know about you but I don’t think it’s wise to even be in the vicinity of Grim, especially when he might decide to go scorched earth.”
“None of what we’re doing is wise – or safe for that matter, but we’re doing it anyway. You already know the risk so I won’t bother explaining,” Sam started. “But if things play out the way I’m thinking, Grim won’t go scorched earth, he won’t even get the chance. But you’re right, we can’t pull this off ourselves.”
“So… what then?”
Sam’s grin returned.
“Recruitment.”
“Recruitment?”
“You think all I’ve been doing is scrolling forums and compiling profiles?”
I blinked again, confused.
“...Yes?”
“Adorable,” Sam said. “Suit up. We’ve got a potential recruit to go meet.”