Right, so there we were, about thirty minutes outside of Chicago in a random fast food joint that we’d stopped at for just a few minutes to grab lunch. And somehow we had already ended up entangled in some sort of robbery. A robbery that we needed to deal with, and get away from, without actually exposing either our real identities or our Touched ones. If the authorities knew we were away from Detroit where the lockdown was, they'd probably be a bit upset. And I didn’t think the two of us stopping a robbery would make them feel better about that.
Yeah, this was going to be a bit complicated, to say the least. Thankfully, I had ways of using my powers that weren't obvious. As long as I put the paint underneath my clothes, I could be fast and strong and all that without actually revealing who I was. On the other hand, revealing that Cassidy Evans had powers would complicate my life just as much as showing them I was Paintball. And while I was very confident that no one out there knew me at a glance, especially with my current disguise, I wasn’t so sure that they wouldn't have cameras. In fact, I knew they did. There were the security cameras, after all. Security cameras that had already picked me up coming inside here in the first place. And my disguise might not hold up to intense scrutiny. Fortunately, Paige already said she could deal with that once we were done.
I also had a simple solution to hiding my identity even better than the altered hair and all that right now. I had access to my costume in the bag, and even though I didn't want to use the whole thing, I could still put on the mask. After all, most people identified Paintball as having the helmet. But I always wore the ski mask under it as well. So, I put that on, as well as the gloves to protect myself from leaving fingerprints, changing both to be black. Then I changed the rest of my clothes to match. Great, fantastic, now I just looked like a burglar or something. Which wasn’t the best thing when stopping a robbery. But at least I wouldn't be associated with a certain Star-Touched from Detroit. Hopefully, anyway.
Okay, now my identity was at least somewhat safe. Assuming I could get through this without screwing something up. To that end, I stood next to the doorway and waited while Paige did her own thing. She was working her way around to the back door, where she would disconnect the emergency alarm and slip inside so she could access the security system. Which would allow her to both delete the footage of the two of us, and tell me exactly where every bad guy was. I just hope she worked quickly, before those guys got too antsy about where their buddy was. Right now they seemed to be distracted by everything else involved with using at least four guys to rob a small fast food joint in the middle of the day (seriously, what the fuck) but something told me that wouldn't last.
Thankfully, if Paige was one thing, it was efficient. I had barely started to get anxious before the text came back from her to let me know she was in the manager's office. She'd already dealt with one guy who was in there and now she had control of the cameras. She sent a link that allowed me to connect to them on my phone as well, giving me a view of the whole front lobby and kitchen. I quickly counted four bad guys out there. Three were the ones Paige had noted before, scattered through the lobby holding guns on the customers, while the fourth was up by the grill, keeping the staff under control. And seriously, by my count, that was six guys. Four up front now, one in the manager’s office, and one who had come back into the restroom. Six freaking guys to rob a single fast food joint. How much could they possibly have been expecting to get from that? This whole thing was patently absurd. Maybe these guys were all complete idiots. Overly-armed idiots. It wasn’t out of the question. Or, just as likely, something else was going on that we didn’t understand or have the context for.
Either way, now I knew where those guys were and could keep an eye on them through the cameras. Between that and the fact that I had my mask in place, it was time to move. So, I sent a text back to Paige, telling her to go ahead and start the distraction. We needed to pull their attention toward the back before I made my move. Sure, these guys seemed dumb. But with those hostages out there, now wasn't the time to screw anything up or get too cocky. One wrong move, one of those guys losing it and opening fire, and this would be… really bad. It was a thought that made me grimace, trembling a little despite myself. Staring at my hand, I watched it shake before forcing myself to breathe out and steady it somewhat. But not enough. Why now? I had been through dangerous situations before, why was that thought making me freak out? Was it just because we were away from Detroit? Was it all the other stress piling up, including my parents’ situation? Was it the fact that this whole thing seemed so random and absurd?
All of the above. It was all of the above. Everything was adding up, and in that single moment right as I was waiting for Paige’s distraction, it almost seemed to be too much. Hugging myself tightly, I tried to get my breathing under control. Stop it. Stop shaking. This was a stupid robbery, it was fine. It was going to be fine. I could handle it. No one out there was going to die.
I was distracted from my turmoil by the buzzing of my phone. It was another message from Paige. ‘Going for it. Don’t worry, we can handle this. I’ve got your back.’
That was it, all she said. But reading the message… helped. I closed my eyes briefly, allowing the words to fill my mind. She had my back. We could handle this. And just like that, I could breathe easily again. The knot in my stomach relaxed, as I straightened up and pushed all those doubts and worries away for the moment. My hand finally stopped shaking. All that mattered right now was dealing with this.
Paige had pretty good timing as well. Because at the very moment that I had pulled myself together, thanks to her message, I heard a shout coming from the back rooms where she was. It was a man's voice, but I knew Paige was the one talking. “Oh shit, it's the goddamn motherlode! Get back here and check this out! We're fucking rich!”
We figured that they weren't quite stupid enough to send everyone that way and completely leave the hostages unguarded, no matter how excited their partner sounded. But it at least made them move that way a bit, their attention drawn toward the back area. And in that moment, as I watched the guys take their eyes off the hostages reflexively, I pushed open the door and activated the black paint on the inside of my socks, as well as the green lines running down the inside of my pants. A second later, I was sprinting completely silently out of the restroom.
The way the layout of this place worked, this door was at the very end of the hallway, with the door leading into the actual women’s restroom on the right-hand wall next to it. On the same wall about halfway to the dining room was another door leading into the kitchen. But the three guys out front weren't heading for that door. They were just planning on moving into the kitchen area by jumping over the front counter. One of them had already done so, joining his partner over there as they both looked toward the back where their partner's voice had come from. The second guy had his hands on the counter and was staring that way as well, while the third and last guy in the lobby had moved a few steps that way, his back to the hostages. I took all that in with a quick glance at my phone while sprinting down the hall toward the lobby. The guy who was still nearest the hostages had his right side facing me, and I was just barely outside of his peripheral vision as I came out of that hall.
I could hear the other people in the room, the hostages, reacting to my sudden appearance. But of course, they didn't know what was going on, especially since I just looked like another thief right then. Ignoring them, I threw myself at that nearest guy with a little assistance from blue paint secretly put on the bottom of my shoes and orange on the inside of my shirt. Before he had any idea what was happening, my body collided with his hard enough to take him to the ground with a strangled yelp.
I immediately rolled off of him, allowing that initial impact to keep the guy out of the way for a second. Seriously, I may have been small, but getting hit with around a hundred pounds right in the stomach going at top speed probably didn't feel very good. He wasn't in a rush to get back up. Well, maybe he was mentally. But physically, it was going to take a moment. Just in case, however, I made sure to quickly kick the gun the man had dropped, sending it skidding across the floor and underneath a booth in the distance.
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The other guy who was still in the lobby, the one who hadn’t already jumped over the counter and instead stood right in front of it, heard the commotion and turned. But by the time he did, I had already rolled off the first guy to put myself right near him. While he was taking in the sight of his partner already on the ground struggling to breathe, my foot lashed out to hit his leg, backed up by a bit of hidden purple paint. Which was enough to make that guy stagger and fall to one knee, cursing out loud in a mix of surprise and pain. And before he could recover or catch himself, I punched him in the face, knocking his head backward against the counter he had just been leaning on. Which ended up making him about as eager to keep moving as his buddy.
Meanwhile, the two guys on the other side of the counter had clearly heard something happen out here. They would have heard their partner curse, but by the time they turned around, he was out of sight from me kicking him in the leg. From their point of view, he had just magically vanished. Already, I could hear them shouting demands about what was going on, where these guys were, and that this definitely wasn’t funny so they should stop fucking around.
Out of sheer habit, and possibly as a product of my own fear, I opened my mouth reflexively to blurt a joke of some sort. But at the last second I stopped myself. It was already going to be hard enough to keep my identity as Paintball a secret out here. The last thing I needed to do right now was start making jokes that the witnesses would remember. So, I simply pushed myself up, caught the second guy by the face with one hand, and shoved his head backwards into the counter once more with enough force to stun him again. At the same time, my foot kicked the gun he had been holding out of the way as well, off to join the other guy’s.
By that point, the first guy I had crashed into had picked himself up to his knees and opened his mouth to shout a warning. But I planted my hands against the floor to shove myself upward and outward with my arms, extending one leg until my foot collided with his chin, snapping his mouth shut just as he managed to get a single syllable out. The force of the blow was enough to make him fall backwards on his rear, grabbing his mouth in pain while letting out a flurry of curses. Something told me this wasn’t the sort of situation he’d signed up for when they came to rob this place.
Meanwhile, everything I was doing out here had definitely fully grabbed the attention of the two guys in the kitchen area. They shouted for their partner to come help and were already coming back to the counter to jump over and see what the hell was happening, since they had completely lost sight of two buddies here and could only hear them cursing and yelping.
Which meant neither of them paid much attention to the sound of footsteps coming out of the back, assuming it was the guy they just called for. So they were taken by surprise when Paige showed up. Not that I saw her from my position, but I definitely heard her arrival. One guy let out a strangled yelp, followed by a loud crash as he was thrown into something. A second later, there was a thud as the second guy’s head was slammed down into the front counter right there. That was followed by a curse from the first guy as he tried to get up, but Paige did something else that made him crash back down again. That time he stayed in place.
Popping up to my feet, I took a quick step forward to snap my foot out, kicking the guy I had crashed into once more. He tried to blurt either a threat, or a plea. I wasn’t sure which. Either way, my foot collided with him and he went down, groaning a little.
That was it. They were done. Turning, I saw Paige for the first time during this whole thing. She was wearing a mask of her own, likely simply taken from the man she had taken out in the office. Our eyes met, and she gave me a quick nod before tossing something my way. Zipties. She had zipties.
The two of us secured the men on either side of the counter, making sure they couldn’t escape. Then Paige addressed the stunned hostages, who were sitting there staring at us. She told them to call the cops and make sure these guys got picked up. This, of course, was another subtle thing we had come up with to obscure our identities. Normally I was the one who did the talking in these situations. But in this case, I hadn’t said anything at all and she had talked instead.
Yeah, maybe all of this was pointless. We were like three hundred miles away from Detroit, after all. But still, it never hurt to be careful. I had no idea just how intense the cops out here would be about trying to figure out who we were, so it was best to err on the side of caution.
With all that done, we didn’t waste any more time. There was no telling how long it would take the authorities to show up here. The two of us raced out the van once more, hopping inside. A second later, Paige peeled out and we were racing out of the parking lot.
But we didn’t go straight to the freeway. Instead, the other girl simply pulled around behind the nearby self-serve car wash, out of sight. I hopped out, made sure there were no cameras anywhere around, and painted the van so it was red and white instead of green. Paige still had access to the security cameras in the restaurant itself, and had deleted all the footage of the two of us, as well as our van. But we figured the people in there would describe it. Now anyone trying to find us on the freeway would be looking for the wrong color vehicle.
While I was doing that, Paige had run around to the back of the van, ripping the old license plate off before putting a new one on. Another service from the group who had delivered the vehicle in the first place was leaving a small stack of extra plates to use, apparently.
As soon as we were both done with that, Paige and I started to run back around to our own doors. But we basically ran into one another, colliding before both of us stumbled back. My hand snapped out to catch one of hers before she could fall, and she did the same for my other hand. We caught each other, stared, and then we were both jumping up and down excitedly. The sudden rush of exhilaration about what we had just done hit me in that moment, as the two of us laughed like overly-caffeinated hyenas and continued hopping wildly. It probably looked really stupid from a distance, but who cared? We were just taking a few seconds to indulge ourselves and be silly.
A moment later we disengaged and sprinted back around to the right doors to clamber in. Then we were back on the road once more, heading onward. I pulled the mask off and slumped back in the passenger seat, while glancing over at Paige with a shrug. “Well that was an interesting lunch break, huh?”
Snorting, the other girl took her borrowed mask off and dropped it between the seats. “You have a funny definition of the word ‘break,’ Cassie.”
“Hey, I’m just glad we didn’t get bored,” I shot back, smirking a little despite myself. “Though I kind of worked up another appetite doing all that. You sure we can’t go back for some more fries?”
“You’ll just have to wait,” she informed me primly. “We need to put some miles between us and--” Even as she said that, the sound of multiple sirens filled the air. Both of us tensed a bit, but the handful of cop cars simply went screaming past us back the way we had come, heading for the scene of the robbery. We had gotten out of there just in time.
“That has to be the weirdest attempted robbery I've ever heard of,” I found myself saying once we were both able to relax. “Six guys with guns just to steal from a fast food place in the middle of the day? What could they possibly have hoped to get away with that would be worth all that? What, were they going to divvy up two hundred bucks amongst themselves or something? This whole situation doesn't add up. But I guess we'll never know what was actually going on.”
Paige shrugged. “Oh, I already know what they were stealing. These.” With that, she reached into her pocket and took out a small leather bag. Opening it, she showed me while continuing to drive. I looked inside to see a small handful of bright blue gemstones, which seemed to glow and gave off a very soft, almost imperceptible humming sound.
Eyes widening, I blurted, “Wait, are those--”
“Energy Diamonds, yup,” she confirmed. “Designed by that Tech-Touched in Boston. Each of those things hold a hell of a lot of power, enough to help charge up some pretty heavy-duty Touched-Tech without drawing attention from the power company. Seems that whole restaurant back there was a front for smuggling these things around.”
“And you just took them?” I managed a little weakly.
“Not all of them,” she corrected me. “Just a few. There was a whole safe full of the things. The cops can have those. But I thought we could let the kid use these ones to charge up that teleportation thing so we don’t have to use Pittman’s energy source. And for anything else she wants to use them for.”
Taking that in, I slowly nodded. “Right, sure. That makes sense. I guess we should use what we can get. Especially when it comes to this. This isn’t the best time to be picky about it. And hey, we’re not even halfway to Utah yet but we’ve already got more resources than we left with.
“At this rate, we’re gonna have everything we need by the time we get where we’re actually going.”