The beer bottle crashed into the wall as the man in a kevlar vest dodged out of the way, the bottle missing his head by inches. When his buddy, Minarchist, had told him about this place he had thought it might just be a group of drunks that liked to mouth off. Now he was certain they were a paramilitary organization as his friend had suspected. Unlike the few they had let stand before, these guys weren’t just anti-government, they were anti-everyone. Or, at least, anti everyone that isn’t a straight white christian male. AKA, neo-nazis.

The man who threw the bottle reached for his AR and Patriot grabbed a nearby chair, flinging it at him. The chair hit the end of the gun, knocking the gun from his hand. The man grabbed his hand from the pain and Patriot ran forward, punching him in the face and knocking him out.

Several more people tried to pull guns but Patriot ran at one of them and grabbed him. He pulled the man in between him and his friends so that they wouldn’t fire, then ran at the friends, turning the three of them into a human pile. Now that they were off their feet he grabbed the guns and threw them into the corner of the bar, away from them. Without a gun they would have to fight him hand to hand and Patriot was confident he could defeat them in such a state.

Minarchist’s fight was a bit smoother. The man that pulled a shotgun on him found the gun pulled out of his hand and spun in a circle to connect with the side of his head, knocking him out. The bar tender also pulled a shotgun only for him to jump over the bar, behind the bartender, and kick his legs out from under him before putting him in a sleeper hold and knocking him out.

With the patrons now neutralized, the two let the cop’s corruption work in the favor of the people and collected the ammo from the weapons in case they woke up. They anonymously called the personal cell phones of four police officers from two burner phones and told them about the people here, even sending them pictures of some of the flags and stickers on the walls of the bar. Two of the cops were black, one was gay, and one was Jewish. Once that was done the went outside and threw their phones into one of the burn barrels the local homeless people had set up for warmth. That would destroy the phones so that they would remain anonymous.

With everyone inside having been knocked unconscious they waited until they heard sirens approaching, then left. They didn’t want to deal with the cops, but had to make sure the drunk patrons didn’t try anything. Besides, they had a meeting to get to.

The two were similarly dressed in camo and plate carriers, and had similar powers of durability, strength, endurance, and accelerated healing, but they had different personalities and training. Patriot was an ex military super, having gotten his powers from a military grade supersoldier serum, a veteran with twelve years in the military who decided to muster out after his last tour ended because he no longer agreed with the foreign policy which governed the latest middle-eastern war. He was a police officer after leaving the service, but left after less than a year when he couldn’t handle the corruption he saw all around him.

Minarchist was, in some ways, was just the lesser version of Patriot. He got his powers from a pharmaceutical company’s human trials of a new combat serum instead of being an actual soldier. His gear was all civilian issue, with a few bits of old military surplus added in. And rather than being a cop, he worked private security for a warehouse downtown. In a few ways, however, he was better. The people liked him better for one thing. He was always willing to crack a joke or a beer with his neighbors, and help them out if they needed it. And while he might not have the honed reflexes of a soldier, he also didn’t freeze in fights or have bursts of anger sometimes due to PTSD.

The two looked out for each other and, while they fought and argued occasionally, they were the best of friends.

They made their way to the homeless section of the city, stopping by a convenience store on the way to buy a few cases of beer. They handed all but one case to the people that were gathered in the homeless section and went to the back of the camp where there was a sewer lid. With their enhanced strength neither of them would struggle with opening it, so Patriot checked to make sure that no one was watching them as Minarchist lifted the hatch and started down the ladder. Patriot followed, closing the cover.

Now that they were in the sewers it was only a short walk to a set of service stairs which lead down. At the bottom of the stairway another door lead to the lower part of the sewers, which in turn lead to the district’s water treatment plant. They, however, didn’t need to go that way. The concrete wall at the end of the staircase had tiny nicks taken out of the bottom of it, as if someone had take a chisel to it. While most people would ignore them as just being a minor bit of damage, Minarchist stuck his fingers into two of them and lifted, making sure to keep his back straight. The wall itself weighed over eight hundred pounds, but he was able to dead-lift it with little strain.

Once his friend was under it he walked under it as well, carefully turning around and adjusting his hand hold so he wouldn’t drop it as he went under it. As soon as he was finished he released it and it slid closed, being slowed by a device built into the wall so that it didn’t come crashing down.

The two of them made their way to the circular room nearby and ignored the turrets. As soon as the elevator opened they stepped inside and took it down to the meeting room.

The doors opened and they stepped out. “Hey guys. Sorry we’re late.” said Minarchist. “We were out looking for allies and stumbled across some neo nazis. Had to wait on the cops to get there.”

Communist scoffed. “You actually trust the cops to do what’s right?” he asked. Socialist, the old woman beside him, stared at him, then took a sip of her beer.

“I trust two black cops, a jewish cop, and a gay cop to not let any of them get away.” said Patriot, and communist shrugged.

“Fair enough.” the kid said, then looked away.

“What’s with him?” Min asked Soc.

“He tried to sneak a beer and I took it from him.” she said. “Tried to make me think it was just a soda, but I’ve gotten used to his tricks.”

Pat smiled and sat a new case of beer on the counter. “Normally I wouldn’t care, kid, but I think your grandma does.”

“She’s not my grandma.” said Com. “She’s..” Soc hit him on the arm with her cane and they looked at each other. “She’s just an old woman I know. No relation.”

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“Whatever you say, kid.” said Rebel, walking up. “Ancap wants us in the meeting room now that we’re all here. Apparently he’s got a lead on a possible new team member.”

“I hope it’s a woman this time.” said Com. “It’s getting to be a bit of a sausage festival down here.” He got hit by a cane and yelped like a dog.

Once they were in the new room everyone took a chair, facing the podium where a man in a yellow and black suit stood. “Welcome everyone. I hope you all got something to drink before sitting down. It’s going to be a long meeting.”

Most of them held up a beer, but Com held up a Mt. Dew, the hardest thing he was allowed. “So, as Rebel told you, I’ve got a lead on a possible new member for our group.” He pushed a button on his remote and a picture appeared. There was only one person in the photo, but he manipulated he controls and the projector zoomed in on a wallet. A wallet that looked like it was floating out of the man’s back pocket.

“A telekinetic, like you?” asked Com. While Ancap didn’t tell them everything he could do, they did know that he possessed both telepathic and telekinetic abilities, even if they were fairly weak.

“When Rebel first pulled the camera footage I thought so too, that was until he caught this.” He showed a video of an alley near where the man had been pick-pocketed. It had just stopped raining and there were several puddles on the ground. Suddenly one of the puddles splashed and Ancap paused the video, zooming in on the puddle. The center of the splash was shaped like the bottom of a shoe. “They are actually invisible.”

“Most invisibility powers are either on yourself or on objects.” said Patriot. “They should either be naked or they should be making objects disappear. If they can do both, then they could be really useful to our cause.”

“Rarer than you would think.” said Rebel. “I checked the registry. No one in the state can make both themselves and objects turn invisible, and the few people in the country that can are all accounted for. That means that whoever this is, they are unregistered.” Most of the current team were registered, so having someone that wasn’t would mean that they could do much better at covert ops. And the invisibility powers made them even better.

“We’ll need to figure out who it is before the cops do and try and recruit them.” concluded Ancap.

“Have we tried asking Agorist?” asked Soc, her voice quieter than the others. Ag was a black market dealer with teleportation powers who sometimes sold them information and often sold them supplies, but refused to join the team because there wasn’t enough profit in doing so.

“I arranged a meeting with him.” said Rebel. “If you want to go with me, you’re welcome to do so.” Soc nodded.

“In the mean time, I’ll visit the scene of the crime.” said Pat. “Maybe I’ll get lucky and see the target in action.”

“If you can see them, they probably aren’t the target.” quipped Min, only to get a mean look in response. “I’ll go with you, though. Plain clothes, though. We show up in costume the cops will get wind of it and will look into what we’re up to. I suggest everyone does plain clothes.”

Soc smiled and expanded, and suddenly a six foot four old man was sitting there. Technically, their power still followed the conservation of matter, meaning that they were the same mass, but they could inflate themselves a bit to look the part.

“Fair enough. No one will recognize Soc.” said Ancap. “but for the rest of us, we should stay under the radar. I’ll stay here and listen to the police scanner. Maybe we’ll get lucky. If you need help, though, call it in and I’ll hurry over.” The teleporter he was building based on Ag’s powers might not be ready yet, but he could always fly. It might wear him out, but better that than leaving his friends hanging.

With Reb, Soc, and Com heading for the black market and Min and Pat heading for the area where the recruit was working, everyone got up, grabbed the specialized comms equipment Reb and Ancap had made to help them keep in touch, and headed out. Ancap went to the control room turned on the police scanner. The wire for it, along with the wire for the comms relay he would use to talk to his people, were run through the wall and joined in with many other wires in the sewers, where they could hide in the crowd.

An hour later Min and Pat were walking through the Kellogg district, one of the more upscale parts of the city. It was unlikely that they would just see the person working, or rather, see the objects being moved, but maybe they would get lucky. Pat, as an ex cop, was treating this like an investigation. While he was certain that there were fences somewhere in this part of the city, anyone that was selling stolen jewelry would earn more by selling to a jewelry store, so some thieves did just that. He had contacted Rebel on the way over and gotten photographs of many of the stolen items, which he intended to search for in the various jewelry stores in the district.

The two of them walked into one such store and up to the counter. “Detective Grisham, FCPD, this is my partner Detective King.” The two flashed police badges they had bought from Ag, quickly putting them away before anyone could tell that they were fake. “I need to talk to you about some jewelry that has been reported stolen.” Pat pulled out a burner smartphone and showed the picture of one of the necklaces that had been caught on camera.

The man looked it over. “I don’t recognize it, but you are happy to look around for it or any other items that may have been stolen.”

Pat nodded. “Do you have a record of all the items you’ve purchased from private individuals in the last month?”

“Yes, of course detective. Right this way.” He lead them to a back office where he connected them to a computer. “This machine has a record of all of the transactions since we opened five years ago, including pictures of the items being sold. Just type the date here and you can just forward through them by clicking the forward button.”

Pat nodded. “Thank you. We’ll contact you if we need anything further.” The man nodded and returned to the front of the store.

“They really need to work on their security.” muttered Min. “All we had to do was say we were police and they gave us access to all of their records.”

“Be glad they have such poor security.” replied Pat, then started flipping through the records.

Two hours later they recognized one of the pieces of jewelry, a ruby ring with a gold band. It was rare enough that few people would have one. Pat called the manager back to the room. “This ring.” he said, showing the photograph they had brought with them and the one in the record. “Do you have any record of the purchase?”

The manager nodded and clicked on a few places on the computer. “It was purchased from a Mrs. Janet Hargrove.” He said, showing the purchase record. “She buys and sells a lot of jewelry. Many of our customers do.”

“Would you happen to have a photo of her?” asked Pat.

“I can pull the security camera footage for you, if you want.” the man replied, and Pat nodded. The man got them the video of all of the times she had been in the store, the store’s security AI being able to quickly sort through months of video from over a dozen cameras. Once they had the footage the two fake cops thanked the man, took the stolen ring, and left.

They sent the digital evidence to Ancap and started searching the streets. “I looked her up.” said Min. “Her Linked Up profile says she works at some non-profit. I also have her home address.”

“Maybe they aren’t paying her enough?” said Pat. “Whatever the case, we’ll head over to her house and ask her a few questions.” As they hadn’t driven here, they hired a Super driver to take them to a nearby gated community where they talked to the gate guard. Another flash of a couple of fake badges and they were allowed inside. The guard had looked at the badges better than the manager at the jewelry store, but still hadn’t seen that they were fake.

Once they had walked to the correct house, they knocked. It was after ten o’clock, so they weren’t sure if the woman would answer but a few seconds later she opened the door a crack, keeping the chain on the door. “Yes, can I help you?” she asked, looking extremely tired.

“I’m Detective Grisham, this is Detective King. We were investigating some stolen jewelry and the store told us that you sold them this ring.” Pat pulled out the gold and ruby ring. “Care to tell us where you got it?”

She looked a bit surprised. “Oh. I bought it off a street vendor in the Grove district. I work nearby. He only asked for a hundred, and I knew it was worth at least five, so I bought it to resale. I had no idea it was stolen.”

Pat looked at Min, who nodded. That was, in fact, the district where the non-profit was located. While Grove wasn’t a bad neighborhood, it had a lot of office buildings, warehouses, clinics, and research facilities. “Do you happen to remember who what this street vendor looked like?”

“An old man? I didn’t really get a good look at him. I think he had a beard. Honestly, I was focusing more on the money I could make.”

The two men nodded and thanked her. “In that case, we’ll come back by if we think of anything. Or you can call us if you think of anything.” Pat wrote “Detective Grisham” on a business card that had their burner phone’s number on it and handed it to her. “Sorry, new cards. Thought I’d try and be fancy by just putting the number.”

She nodded. “I understand. Now, if it’s alright, I’d like to go back to bed.” The two nodded and she closed the door and locked it.

“You know.” Min said a minute later as they were walking back towards the gate. “She’s probably the perp and this old man street vendor is probably just a red herring.”

“I know.” said Pat. “But let’s look into it just in case.”

They found no evidence of an old man street merchant selling jewelry in Grove, even after they asked around about them. They did find a few street vendors selling jewelry, but they either sold fake jewelry or cheaper trash. No one had anything worth more than a hundred dollars.

“Come on.” said Pat around one in the morning. “Let’s go turn in our findings and go home. I’m tired.”