15:40. Monday, December 4th, 2023. Harmon Town Hall.
It was funny how the simple act of requesting a private conversation in the future had a way of making all of the time before that conversation excruciatingly awkward.
Alexis still had twenty minutes before Aabria clocks out. Being aware of the ticking clock of her conversation with Aabria though made Alexis think about her other ticking clock for when Town Hall shuts down.
She wasn’t exactly safe going home. She knew that she was probably okay as long as she wasn’t alone, especially since nothing had happened to her at work.
Alexis texted Jen and asked if she could come over, she didn’t receive an answer but she probably could bank on a yes. And if not her, she could probably go to her grandma or dad’s house.
Jen would be ideal though because whenever I am over we end up just sharing her bed.
With how comforting the idea was to her in the moment, the notion crossed Alexis’s mind that she was acting more like a kid who just had a nightmare rather than an adult afraid for her life.
She tried to banish the thought by focusing more on her work. She still hadn’t done any research yet about the Costume Game. And who knew? Maybe she would get lucky and find out that maybe what was happening to her was connected to it in some way.
Alexis was doubtful though, as much as the Sobol brothers seemed to believe for some reason it was a real threat to Harmon’s public safety, Alexis couldn’t see how.
With things like Comic Book Syndrome, it made sense. When people were uncertain they turned to the media for escape, and of course some people would take those escapist fantasies with them into their lives. Even Alexis was guilty of this from time to time when she larped as a master detective whenever debunked a ghost story with Aabria.
But a fifteen year-old psychic acting like they were a chosen one was one thing, but them dressing up to fight people was a whole other question. Sure, Alexis has heard of that happening, but she couldn’t see how there would be enough people who would be into it that it would cause a small town like Harmon any problems.
But she was less sure if it existed in Midport. And she was genuinely curious to learn more about what it was even like.
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It didn’t take long for her to find more information on Roomr. Roomr tended to have the answers one was looking for so long as one was willing to trust the words of strangers on the internet.
Though Alexis didn’t have an account, she did find herself using the site often. It was a news aggregation-site and forum structured around different pages called ‘rooms’. By default, posts were sorted by age and amount of comments it received (called whispers).
To counterbalance spamming comments on your own post, there were some pretty strict rules regarding how many times one could comment in succession. And to encourage engagement, there was a strict button one could press which would automatically post a default message of one five different pictures.
The ‘room’ which seemed to correspond to the costume game was “/room/RealWorldSupers”.
After opening the page, Alexis was immediately overwhelmed by the amount of activity. There was everything from caped heroes fighting crime to caped heroes being arrested for destruction of property while fighting crime. Which, honestly? Fair.
The thing that shocked her though was just how many people were actively posting content related to this. There were even self-proclaimed villains who were posting about their evil schemes and their victories over local heroes. Sure some of these ‘villains’ seem harmless, but posting here seems like a good way of getting yourself arrested.
There was also a lot of mundane stuff. One person was asking the best method for making a costume with a lot of metal to better synergize with their talent. The answer was apparently to use a lot of chainmail.
Another person, who was clearly engagement farming, had asked which super villain had the best name. There were a lot of whispers on that post, with people arguing pretty intensely about it. If people ever get into a real fight on here, does it ever lead to a fight IRL?
Alexis checked the pinned post, which was a directory of related rooms and the main rules.
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1. No hate speech. Follow Roomr’s terms of service and be civil, just because you’re evil doesn’t mean you get to be a jerk!
2. No politics. Exceptions may be made but baiting for engagement will not be tolerated.
3. No doxxing and no unmasking. If you want to reveal your arch-nemesis’s face to the world, do it somewhere else.
4. No gore, No NSFW.
5. No recruiting, no plotting, and limit any self-promotion outside of the weekly threads. If you want to get people to join your group or start a new scheme outside of that, try going to your area’s specific RWS room.
6. No reporting anyone without first messaging mods.
7. Untagged posts will be auto-deleted.
8. Read the newbie guide before posting questions.
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Alexis couldn’t help but smile to herself. Even with supposed super heroes, guess you always have the same old internet.
Underneath the rules she found the newbie guide the rules were referring to as well as a bunch of related rooms. There were rooms for heroes, villains, and even people who wanted to discuss politics (which was “/room/RWS_Politics”).
Then a bunch of for different geographical locations. She clicked and opened the newbie guide in another tab so she could read it later and pulled up the room for her region, which was labeled as “/room/RWS_NewEngland”.
She clicked the link. It was still surprisingly active, she expected the activity level to drop off after she left the main RealWorldSupers room. She ran a search for Harmon.
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“Sorry! No good gossip here. Your search in /room/RWS_NewEngland for ‘Harmon’ turned up 0 results in! Search all of Roomr?”
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Man not even in a comment? Well fitting.
It made sense though, Harmon was a small town. Nobody really cares about messing with it. She searched for Midport instead. And clicked the option to sort by age.
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“You haven’t heard what they are saying in /room/RWS_NewEngland about ‘Midport’? Everybody’s talking about it!! Here’s just a taste of what they are saying…”
* Anyone hear how the Graveyard Bash fight went? NEW!
* * By guardfrombladefighter[NonCostumed]
* * 5 Whispers / Text Post / [Tagged ‘Midport’]
* is juggler ok???
* * By GBGhoul9[New]
* * 84 Whispers / Text Post / [Tagged ‘Midport’, ‘Serious’, ‘Help’ ]
* An Official Challenge to Graveyard Bash
* * By midportMessenger[Hero]
* * 10 Whispers / Text Post / [Tagged ‘MOTW’, ‘Challenge’, ‘Midport’]
* Check out my latest video!
* * By Lassoman[NonCostumed]
* * 2 Whispers / Link / [Tagged ‘SelfPromo’, ‘Midport’]
* “Self-Proclaimed ‘Villains’ Put On Haunted House for Charity”
* * By GBZombie[Villain]
* * 54 Whispers / Link / [Tagged ‘News’, ‘Graveyard_Bash’, ‘Midport’]
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Oh there actually does actually seem to be a lot of stuff. That is… Concerning…
You might be reading a pirated copy. Look for the official release to support the author.
The first one didn’t have any useful information, just asking about how a recent fight went. The only real comment was “If it had ended any differently than usual, we probably would have heard something by now.” With the other four comments using the default agreement comment.
The second one was a comment from someone who had recently gotten into the Costume Game, showing some real concern for someone called ‘Juggler’, who may or may not have an unstable living situation. There was a lot of debate about it though. Especially because Juggler was supposed to be a hero and the original poster was apparently a henchman?
She would have to spend a lot of time reading up on it before the SGV meeting. Before she knew it however, Aabria was packing up her stuff.
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16:02. Monday, December 4th, 2023. Harmon Town Hall Parking Lot.
“So what did you want to talk to me about?” Aabria asked, as the two walked to her car.
Alexis hadn’t actually decided how much she was going to tell her. It was hard to even tell how much of the situation was even worth telling. So to buy herself some time she decided to completely pivot.
“Okay, well, I just wanted to thank you for always making work bearable, I really appreciate it.”
“Of course dear, it is what I am here for. But I assume that isn’t what’s been bothering you.” Aabria said.
Well no, of course not.
“And I wanted to let you know…” Alexis paused.
Shit, what can I pivot to?
“You wanted to let me know…” Aabria said.
Wait, how long have I paused for? We are almost at her car! Gotta say something!
“I’m uh… I’m gay!” Alexis came out. Welp, that is something!
Alexis couldn’t exactly tell what was going through Aabria’s head, but for Alexis the words just sort of spilled out of her.
“Anytime I have mentioned going out with someone, it was with a girl not a boy, and I just let you think it was a guy because I didn’t want people to know I am lesbian at work because being a psychic is enough right? But then you ended up being really cool and I felt really awkward letting you know till now. And now I think someone might kill me so I may never get the chance to tell you and--”
“Hold on, kill you?”
Uh oh, too many words. Definitely let too many words out.
“Yeah. I uh, have been kind of freaking out about it. But also it may not even be real!”
“Okay, one second.” Aabria took out her phone and fiddled with it for a second. It gave Alexis a moment to catch her breath which was nice.
“Sorry, I just wanted to let my husband know I was going to be late. Before I get into any of the details I just want to say thank you for what you said, you shouldn’t feel guilty for not telling me, it is your business after all.”
“Oh thanks, and uh, sorry for dumping this all on you.” Alexis said, doing her best not to tear up. She hadn’t realized how much she was burying her feelings until now.
“Just walk me through what happened, are you okay with that?” Aabria asked. Alexis nodded.
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It took a while to explain everything, with Aabria asking the occasional clarifying question. Alexis skipped over part about her talent activating. When Alexis was about to explain more of her thoughts on it, Aabria.
“You do know what this sounds like, right?” Aabria said.
“No… What?” Alexis asked.
“It sounds like you are being haunted.” Aabria said.
Alexis almost laughed. “What? No. Aabria, now isn’t the time for ghost stories, I am serious.”
“I am being serious too. A bunch of mysterious things start happening to you that you can’t explain. Sounds like a ghost to me.”
Alexis was honestly stunned into science. She knew Aabria liked the supernatural, but didn’t think the belief ran this deep.
“Aabria, that doesn’t make sense. Even if I accept that as true, why would a ghost be after me?” Alexis asked.
“Why would a super powerful psychic be after you and only mess with your keyboard?” Aabria said.
“I… Huh…” Alexis said.
“Listen dear, I can’t make heads or tails of this either, maybe you are catastrophizing or not. If you really feel unsafe you can always go to the police, even if I know that makes you uncomfortable.” Aabria said.
“Wait, I never said I don't like cops?” Alexis asked.
“Alexis, dear, you aren’t exactly a smooth operator. When you are nervous you like to play with your hair.” Aabria said.
“How do you know I wasn’t just anxious? How do you know it's because I don’t like them?” Alexis asked. She started to stroke her hair.
“I didn’t know until you told me, dear.” Aabria clarified.
“Wait… Oh.” Alexis said. She replayed the last part of the conversation in her head again.
“I don’t want to make you paranoid. People really do like you dear, you do good work, but you clearly get a little bit in your head. And I am certain if anyone can figure this out, it’s you.” Aabria said.
“Thanks Aabria, that actually makes me feel a lot better.” Alexis said.
“Of course, and if you do decide it’s a ghost, let me know because I have an exorcist on speed dial!”
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Aabria had to go home after that. But opening up helped Alexis feel like she was in a lot less immediate danger. Aabria had been right, if she couldn’t handle this on her own she could just go to the police, even if the idea made her uncomfortable.
But this just raised the question of if she did feel comfortable. After all, the last place she had been before this went down was the HPD. And Aabria had shown they would have a motive too, because Alexis wasn’t as secretive with her feelings as she thought.
Maybe one of them followed me after I left on Friday.
If this was the case, someone in the room she gave the presentation to was secretly an unregistered psychic. Which if true was pretty bad. A psychic cop was bad, but a psychic cop who was also specially coming after her made her more than a little terrified.
Or it would if she was still Alexis, and not Detective Driscol!
This was her other take away from her conversation with Aabria, which was that Alexis was good at figuring situations like this, she just needed to act like she did when she played detective and try to look at the bigger picture.
Afterall, she already had everything she needed to prove if it was a member of the HPD already available to her.
Her first piece of evidence were the photos that Goodman sent her. She pulled out the email and thankfully, the photo sharing service he used kept the original metadata.
Her next piece of evidence involved pulling up her bank’s transaction history. With this she would know exactly when she had gone to Duncan’s Coffee. She then started to cross reference the two which gave her a way more precise timeline of the day’s events.
With this, she could conclude all of the people who were in that room were accounted for well after the incident with the car on Friday. Honestly, this makes the most sense, half the people in that room like Chief Sobol and his brother are probably past the cut off point to be psychics anyway.
Psychic’s only started to awaken ten years ago, and awakening can only happen at age fifteen to twenty-five. So that meant the oldest psychics were still in their 30s, way below the average age for the HPD.
This technically left the younger members of the HPD who didn’t attend still viable suspects, but if Alexis was still feeling paranoid later (which she probably would be) she could always check the police records online. Afterall, most probably didn’t attend because they were out on patrol.
With this, she could prove that at least she would with certainty be safe going to the cops.
But Alexis wasn’t done yet. She knew she could figure this out. She just needed one more piece of evidence.
To get it though, she would just need to take a risk. And for once in her life, she was happy she had