3 Months Later.

I had literally spent 3 months underground, dead to the world.

I had gone entirely unplugged. I was unplugged from everything, home, the bunker, patrols–all of it, and in our society that was almost damned near impossible. I didn’t care. I didn’t want to work on any cases. I didn’t want to protect the streets, hell I’d even shut off the scanners. Jefferson, since mine was jailbroken from the city’s eyes, was the only thing left running. Shit, even the voice in my head hadn't spoken for 24 hours. It was all quiet.

I pulled the blankets up over me, covering better. The bunker got cold at night sometimes and tonight had been particularly cold. Which was ironic considering my fire powers. I digress. The TV was on as one of my favorite animated shows hummed away. I knew the show well enough not to bother paying much attention as I doom-scrolled the internet on my phone. I hadn’t checked my profiles in a while. I had several messages from random people and bots alike. Several people liked the page. It felt good to know my hard work of risking my life daily was worth a few thousand likes and some come on messages from random people trying to be my next sidekick. I didn’t do the whole sidekick thing and I never would. I would never find myself in the position of training and babysitting someone else while on patrol. I’d be damned if I ever even considered it.

Sure, there were plenty of other vigilantes and heroes and villains and the whole nine yards in Industry. It was a city with a third the population of people having abilities of some sort or another. Fire, wind, water, shadow, ground and metal electric–the list is expansive. I had a list of all the registered abilities somewhere on my computer.

“Jefferson?” My voice finally faded in from the void.

“Ah, she speaks. Finally, I was beginning to think I’d have to find a new bunker to reside in.” Jefferson’s voice danced brightly in the dark of the bunker. It had now been 48 hours since I’d spoken, and it hurt a bit but felt nice to hear his voice.

“Do we have any records of any kind of blood-based abilities? Like shifting or something like that? I know morphing is a unique one, but is there anything specifically with using one's own blood?” I asked. The idea popped up from a dream I had. It was one of those dreams of Crystal again. I was there looking at the car crash, she was blaming me for it as usual and I stood there, frozen as I had been when the car finally exploded. It was the same trauma dream only this time it felt more like the actual memory. She’d mouthed something to me I never noticed before. She mouthed the word “Blood”

Had she actually done that? Had I actually seen that happen and my guilt-ridden trauma just blocked that actual bit of information from myself? I tried to remember everything from the latest dream, the one I’d woken up from only hours ago in a cold sweat again. She mouthed “blood”. There’s no way I just missed that before. I noticed too–something different. There was someone watching the accident. Someone holding a handout, bleeding. I only noticed it because the mask they wore looked strikingly like that of the girl I met in the playground.

“Nothing.” Jefferson interrupted my chain of thought.

“What?” I asked, completely forgetting I had even asked him something. My already scattered enough brain was everywhere right now.

“You asked me if we had any records of some sort of blood powers. We have nothing in the category. The closest we have is your friend, Meg. The one in The Basement. Her premonition abilities use a blood pressure-based system for it and there are a few different types of powers that require specific types of blood. But there isn’t anything you were asking for.” He explained it like an encyclopedia of abilities. I guess that’s what Jefferson was really. Not only one of my best friends in the world, but he was a floating, blinking, glitching dictionary of everything ever. At least, anything the city had and that I’d added into his data banks since jailbreaking him.

“Oh right. Weird. Okay. Thanks.”

“What's going on, something in your case?” Jefferson now flashed onto the tv as a little emoji in the bottom of the screen. He was riding a skateboard and barely balancing.

“I don’t think so. I honestly don't know. Something is seeming way off lately though. The girl I met in the playground, Mask or woodpecker or something like that. woodpecker…Hold on Jefferson do me a favor and do a wide search of any use of the alias woodpecker.” I sat up, throwing the blanket off me. I was naked, I hadn’t even realized it. That would explain how cold I was. The scars from Trophy Hunter had been healing, but still needed a long way to go. I pulled up my panties and threw on a hoodie.

There was still a case that needed to be worked on. I was working on something before the memory loss and I felt like, now at this moment, it had everything to do with Crystal's death and this Masked woodpecker. I flopped into the computer chair and rolled over to the computer. I flicked it on as it hummed to power.

Bingo. I was back online.

“You got it boss.” Jefferson flickered a few times as the internet browser popped up. I watched several pages of deep web browsing scroll along. Only three items popped up. Jefferson pinned each of them to a different spot on the monitor. I cycled through them; they were each different social media tags with the name. One was a spray paint artist tagging the name somewhere in one of the warehouse districts. The other two were articles. Both of them revolve around the woodpecker murders from several years ago. Both victims had been decapitated and drained of their blood, like a vampire would. Almost a similar looking ritual in the photos to the scene I witnessed with Simon.

Wait a minute. Was I–was I looking into a serial killer? I mean sure. Industry has had them before in its history but usually this was something that fear patrol would handle. What was I doing looking into something that was almost a decade or more old?

“Jefferson, do you have any record of me from a few weeks ago, before the park incident? I had an address in my pocket that night, do you have anything here that could help me remember what the actual case was I was looking into? I know it has something to do with the Viles I uncovered at that drug deal and these woodpecker murders, but is there anything in your memory bank that could shed some light into my own?” I asked, grabbing a beer from the fridge under my desk and slugging the first long drink I’d had in a while.

The little gif of a man flickered a few times changing colors as he searched for anything.

“I have something.” He nodded at me. I glared at him; my hair hung over my eyes, but he recognized the glare instantly as he shrugged.

“Are you going to tell me?” I asked, folding my arms. As I’d asked, a few different notes I’d long since deleted reappeared on screen. Machines I loved having a Jefferson. The files dated back several weeks ago and for some reason I’d deleted them. I clicked the notes app and took another long chug of beer.

There were 3 items.1 was a picture and the other 2 were single sentences. The picture was a picture of Mask. The sentences both read “Blood abilities are real. Diablo.” I had no fucking idea what that meant but the picture of Mask was particularly spooky because it was a picture of Mask with my parents during one of their military speeches back before they died. She was shaking hands with–that's my brother there.

I grimaced. Any time I saw pictures of my brother, I froze. Mom and Dad’s deaths stung a lot, but his hurt in a different kind of way. His I wasn’t actually blamed for because he was in the line of duty although we never knew exactly what he was working on when it happened. There were a lot of things The Institution had kept from us revolving around his death that they hadn’t bothered to do with Mom and Dads. Steven had been undercover. That much we knew. The details of why, where and the extent of what the case was had always been kept secret. I also noted Diablo. It was the name a lot of underground blackhand runners called me, but it was also the name of a notoriously infamous club in the deep, deep red-light districts of Industry.

Stolen novel; please report.

I sighed. I knew I had to go there. I avoided the red-light districts as often as I could. They came with their own slew of issues and heroes/villains. I typically let the rogues running the streets there handle that. Those districts came with a load of baggage I barely wanted to know about let alone deal with. That's where the truly terrifying factions did their work. There were things in those parts of the street that were above even my own pay grade and I'm on the tops of just about every fear patrol category.

“What are the chances that Diablo means something other than the club in undertown?” I asked Jefferson.

“I don’t think there are many instances of other places with that name, AJ. I think you are kind of shit out of luck on this one.”

“Thanks. You’re always so reassuring.”

“I will try my best.” I glared at him, and he smiled back with a smug salute. I may have taught this guy a little too well but then again, these things have always been a little sarcastic.

“Alright well, looks like I’m off to the red-light district.” I grabbed the keys to the bunker, got myself dressed finally–the usual hoodie and jeans and made sure to grab my mask, then headed out.

I found the little speeder-bike I keep stored in a shed a few miles away and pulled the gray tarp off it. I’m sure someone has found it before but frankly who would want this piece of shit I found in the rural districts by the markets–in the trash? I grabbed the bike and hopped on, slipping my mask on now that I was concealed by the creaky old shack, I kept it in. The mask, it felt good. No, it felt great. I hate sounding edgy, but this mask is like an entirely different version of myself. It almost conceals certain aspects of myself and replaces them with different ones.

I took off, revving the engine as the bike darted outwards through the vast wastelands outside of Industry. The bunker is miles outside the walls. I approached the city’s walls, which for an ever-expanding city that seems to sprawl and spiral in every which way, the walls aren’t as high or well re-enforced as you’d expect them to be. The walls themselves are of a steel/rock build with electric currents running through them to prevent someone from just climbing them. I mean, I don’t think anyone is stupid enough to climb these walls, especially considering that there are armed patrols parading the top posts, but- I myself have my ways around the city. There is an old underground tunnel, not too far from the entrance, maybe about a mile out–that used to get used by those same smugglers and bootleggers that ran the sewers. It’s a haft that drops almost directly down at a full 90-degree drop. Not too whimsical or beneficial to try to and scale it yourself. Even most hoover vehicles couldn’t fit through this thing and it is also electric too, running off the same current system as the walls. I imagine there’s probably a big circuit box or something within the walls themselves that patrols have access to, that power everything, but I’m actually not too sure about that one. I’ve never felt brave enough to go looking for it. I’m good, but not good enough to go against that much firepower.

I pressed the small little yellow button on my bike and a small surge of current blasted through the electricity. I set off a minor EMP and took out the power. I had about 20 seconds before an alarm would set to the main station at the wall posts. I kicked it into hyperdrive and sped through as I almost hit my head, I ducked down and watched everything fly past the corners of my eyes. Gods and Technology, sometimes, I enjoyed what I did. I flew through the shaft maneuvering my way around bends and corners until I came around through the small little underground waterfall. I darted forward and came out in the undercity.

The red-light district. It wasn’t too far from the steamy entrances through those pipes. The undercity spanned just as wide and even deeper than the overcity to be entirely frank, though like I’ve said, it comes with its own pantheon of criminals and heroes. I pointed the bike down an alley and headed downwards. Diablo was even further, deeper than I’d been in a long time. The walls flew past me, the wind blowing in my eyes. I could feel them tearing up from the speed pressure. My hoverbike hummed to a low roar as I slowed down, coming to a stop just down the street from the club.

When I say diablo is the entire street, I mean, the club is the entire size of the district. A district wide, 3 story tall club. You wanted to find some information about anyone in Industry, even myself most likely, someone in that building would know–or you could find someone that knows someone that could find out. I’d only ever been inside it one other time and that was back before my transition, back when I first started this whole vigilante thing. I had several contacts that worked here back then, I wondered if I still did. The club owner, RJ and I go back a long way. His little brother and I were childhood best friends. Haven’t seen that family in a while, but I digress. Maybe I should pop in and re-introduce myself. If they’d even recognize me now.

Damn. A lot of things started coming back to me. I might actually have been here more often than I remembered. Pieces and flashes of memory flooded in. The dam was breaking. I saw myself when I was younger, patrolling the undercity. I saw me and RJ talking. We were laughing. Fuck, how much has been taken from me lately? How was it being taken from me and why wasn’t I able to remember simple things anymore? If there were answers to be had, they’d be here. Inside.

I sighed, took a deep breath–fixed my mask and started heading towards the front doors. I took one step forward.

“As I live and breathe, we’re graced with the overcity’s prodigy of darkness and fire!” I hear a voice call out from behind me. I whipped my head around quickly, recognizing the voice. There she was. Standing across the street, leaning against a brick wall. Another friend of mine from back when. She changed her look a bit, but still seemed like she was carrying that sword sheathed on her back. She wore a blue hoody and black shorts with thigh highs and boots to throw everything together. To be honest, it was a look.

“Well, well well–” I flicked on my voice changer. “It has been far too long, Stormcaller.” I said, a grin slithered across my face, though she couldn't see it, I could tell she knew.

“Oh, come now girl, do you really need the whole voice changer thing?” She laughed.

“I’m not taking any chances.” I defended myself. We approached, fist bumping as we did.

“I see you still haven’t eased up all that much.” She laughs. I flushed a little under the mask. “What can the undercity do for ya, dear darkfire?” She asked, a playful inflection in her tone.

“I –I actually am working on a case and I think I may have been here recently.” I admitted.

“You think? You mean you’re not sure?” She asks in fairness.

“Yeah–It’s a long story but the gist of it is that I need to figure out if I was in here within the last few weeks to a month or so and if I was, what was I looking for or asking about.” I nodded towards Diablo.

“Hm.” She tilted her head, looking between me and the club. I could tell she was thinking about something.

“Spill. What's on your mind?” I said bluntly.

“Nothing, nothing. Let's head on and see if we can’t figure out this little mystery of yours.” She said, her eyes smiled at me, but I could tell there was something up. It was in her body language. I swallowed my suspicions though and nodded. If she was hiding something she wouldn’t exactly be willing to head in with me. Right? I mean unless there was a trap of some kind in there, but that's almost impossible considering I didn’t know I was coming here myself until just an hour prior. I hate my brain, here is a friend of mine that I haven’t seen, to my knowledge, in a few years and I'm standing there already expecting a trap. I hate it. I absolutely hate it.

“THIS LINE OF THINKING IS CRITICAL FOR SURVIVAL. WE WOULD NOT HAVE GOTTEN THIS FAR IF WE HADN'T THOUGHT THIS WAY THE TIMES WE DID.” The voice. The voice finally broke its 3-month silence.

“Where the fuck have you been?” I whispered with a turn, trying to hide that I was low key shouting at myself.

“Evaluating our situation.” I said bluntly.

“For 3 months?” I whispered again. I noticed that Stormcaller had been swaying back and forth on her feet, obviously waiting for me. She had to have noticed. I appreciated that she wasn’t saying anything though or asking.

“3 months? It’s been a couple days?” I sounded–concerned.

I would revisit this later. As long as I was back and back to stay, that's all that mattered. I have a 2nd opinion here now. I turned back to face my friend and nodded to her.

“Everything all right over there?” She finally asked.

“Yeah, yeah, we’re good I mean, I’m good.” Dammit I slipped there. Maybe she hadn’t caught it? She tilted her head again but shrugged.

“Alright. Let's head on inside. RJ and company will love to see you!” She admitted. Part of me was nervous. I hadn’t been here in so long. Would they know me? Would they recognize me? Shit what if there were issues? What if I’d caused a scene before? I shook my head and followed Stormcaller into Diablo.

I was going to start getting answers if it was the last thing I did. Or die trying.