I waited in the basement for a few minutes after the speakers went quiet, catching my breath as my Stamina painfully slowly ticked back up. I only waited long enough until I could use another injector, opting to use one of my Enhanced injectors instead of the more powerful but limited in quantity Superior ones I had stolen from the Vipers.
Once I had some Stamina again, I crept back up the stairs, activating Spectrum Veil just before I reached the main floor. Although the den had been marked as cleared, I had no idea what sort of commotion had been caused by the escaping women. The kitchen had quieted down and emptied out completely and there was a distinct lack of music coming from the main dining room.
I let my invisibility fade to conserve my stamina and pushed my way through. The wait staff were standing in the room, stiff as statues and looking right at me with thousand yard stares. They weren’t looking through me though, because their heads followed me as I slowly walked my way toward the table Jon and I had been sitting at. Just as I was about to ask what was going on, every single one of them in perfect unison, started hissing.
It was a slow, steady drone coming from them and I noticed Felicia standing perfectly at attention at the edge of our table. Her eyes were completely unfocused, even as I made contact with them as the sound just continued to escape from her mouth. I reached out, shaking her shoulder just a bit, wondering if it would break her from her trance but nothing changed.
“You’re wasting your time Loophole, if this is what their controller wants them to be doing, then that’s what they’re going to do,” Angie said in a low, practically somber tone.
“Yeah, I sorta figured, but I still have an hour to kill anyway… Even though I want to charge over there right now, I still don’t know which line…” I started but trailed off as I looked around the room.
Even Miss Pearl and her band were standing atop the stage, staring in my direction and hissing. I looked back over at Felicia and leaned in closer, trying to isolate just her voice in the steady drone of the room. I couldn’t help myself as I started to laugh as I realized exactly what was happening. It wasn’t like I was doubled over in laughter, but the pure absurdity of it after the day I had had, finding what I needed so easily was far funnier to me than it should have been.
“Um… are you okay? Did you finally snap?” Angie asked with genuine concern and I finally settled down.
“Codex was right. This place had the answers we needed. The song told us where to start, Grand Central Station, and now they’re telling me the subway line I’ll find him at,” I said, reaching up and wiping away an errant tear.
“But they’re hissing, they’re not telling you anything…”
“No, they’re not hissing. Unlike Sal and the soldiers with their serums, they aren’t snakes. The sound they are making is what would happen if you told a program to read the letter S repeatedly…” I explained. “It’s a pretty small line, but the S-Line does go to Grand Central.”
Practically confirming my words, the entire room went silent, though none of the non-Sapients moved even an inch from where they stood. I backed away from Felicia and looked over toward the front door. Of course, even though I hadn’t called the den in, there were police lights beating against the window.
“Neat revelation aside, can you get out of here… these guys are kinda freaking me out,” Angie muttered. She wasn’t wrong though, and as I headed for the exit, all of their heads turned to follow me as I went.
I pushed my way through the door, finding a crowd of well dressed people being held back by a police line that had quickly formed. I looked around, trying to see if I could find any of the women that had been chained up, but I couldn’t immediately locate any of them. More than one of them had looked incredibly malnourished and I wanted to make sure they were getting help before I just ran off to my next fight.
Luckily, on the far side of the crowd, I could see that there was an ambulance with its doors opened. Axio might have been playing games with all of us, and I knew he was still up to something, but I could at least appreciate what he did with the small bits of influence he did have over the police and medical dispatch. That really seemed to be the only explanation for how they could be here only a few minutes after I finished a fight that no one saw.
While I could have gone over to the ambulance to check in on the women, if they were already with medical staff there was little I could do other than probe them for information and that felt like a callous thing to do in the middle of a crowd.
“Hey Loophole, are those folks in there going to be okay?” One of the officers, a Sapient named Howard, asked as I approached the police line. Before I could even answer, the door behind me opened and the waitstaff all started to stumble out holding their heads and acting disoriented.
“They were following orders and were afraid to leave when the women being treated over there escaped. Can you make sure they are taken care of, they were being held prisoner in the basement and used to sort the drugs,” I said, not technically lying. “This place was a front for the Vipers that have been trying to take over lately. Emphasis on was.”
“Well damn, you’ve been busy,” Howard said and another officer stepped up holding out a hand to me.
“Hi Loophole, sorry, I’m actually a big fan… I saw your fight over on 9th and just, wow you are quite the hero,” he said and I smiled sheepishly as I shook his hand and highlighted him to grab his name.
“Thank you Officer Franklin, I’m just trying to do what I can,” I said and felt my jaw set as I looked from them over to the crowd that was watching me with rapt attention. There were more than a dozen phones being held up, trying to get a good shot at me as I looked between them. I set my jaw as I turned to address them, knowing just what I had to do. “These bikers,” I started, raising my voice as a hush passed over the crowd. “They’ve been trying to hurt the people of our neighborhood. They’ve been trying to hurt the people in Chelsea and Hudson Yard too and it’s gone on long enough. I know I’m still new to this, still new to all of you. But I’m telling you… no… I’m promising you all right here and now. I’m going to put a stop to it. All of it. Not just here, but everywhere these asshole bikers try to terrorize. This is our home, this is our city. You all can count on me to protect it.”
“Phase Points Gained! Territory Claimed: Medium Town: 1500 points (Halved to 750 points, Reason: Contested).”
The crowd erupted into cheers as chants of “Loop. Hole. Loop. Hole. Loop. Hole!” overtook the group. There was one thing that I knew for certain, if there was ever a time for a superhero exit, it was when people were cheering my name. Although my Stamina was still barely creeping up, I gave the group a wave before I bent down and then took off into the air and away from the scene with as much speed as I could manage.
I could have gone back home. Hell, I probably should have. But I knew if I went home now, Jon would talk me out of doing this tonight. He’d tell me we had the location and I could just put it off for another day. But I wasn’t going to risk giving SnakeBite more time to prepare. There was a chance this was a trap, logically I knew that, and I’d use Area Sense as much as I could to try to scout ahead but I wasn’t going to do this alone.
“If I add him to my team, will he be able to hear Codex when he’s back online?” I asked as I set myself down on a roof only half a block away from the Velvet Coil.
“Hmmm checking,” She said and after a few seconds passed she added. “Apparently it’s a setting, you can choose to patch Codex into team chats, but it is a decision you two would have to actively make. Hydramental wouldn’t just be able to hear him right away.”
“And if I do add him, how are missions handled? Back on the train we both had separate missions for that den, but he doesn’t have the mission for the key. Would I have to share or split the mission’s reward with him?” I asked, wanting to make sure I covered all of my bases. While I did promise him that I’d let him know when I was doing this, I didn’t necessarily want to have to share the reward I’d get after all the bullshit he had put me through so far.
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“No, the mission is for you alone. That’s not to say there aren’t missions that you can share, because those do exist and will become more common the further you go, but you don’t have to worry about sharing this specific mission’s S:Tier reward,” she explained before a message appeared.
“Codex has entered The Command Room.”
“Holy shit what the hell did I miss!? How are you already out of there?” Jon’s voice crackled into my head and I could hear him huffing to catch his breath.
“Did you run all the way home?” I asked curiously.
“Well I sure as hell didn’t fly! I was trying not to miss your infiltration. What happened?” he asked again and I let out a small laugh before I, as requested, explained just what happened.
It took a few minutes to go through everything, and taking the time to explain my newest abilities as he examined them from his side. My conversation with SnakeBite, however short it was, was the main topic of discussion, and as I had predicted, Jon wanted me to wait before making my next move.
“Look, I already told Hydramental where to go. There’s every chance that SnakeBite packs up his shit and moves and then knowing Axio we’d have to start this all from scratch. I’m done dealing with this asshole,” I explained, stretching as I looked across the city. I couldn’t exactly see Grand Central from my perch, but I knew roughly where it was.
“There’s nothing I can say that’s gonna change your mind, is there?” He asked and I just shook my head. “Cool, so what’s the plan then? This guy has to have thirty levels on you, Shit it might be forty if we are going based on Silver Wrangler.”
“Maybe I'm being overconfident, I don't know for sure. But I don’t think he’s that strong, even if he is at a much higher level. If he was, I feel like he would have come out himself and stopped me before I wiped his people out of Hell’s Kitchen,” I said and pushed off of the roof as I started floating toward the other side of the city and lowering toward the ground. “I’m not gonna charge in there with this debuff though, just in case, which is why I told Hydramental to meet me there in a bit.”
“I’m surprised you told him at all after everything. You coulda just headed over there before he even knew what was going on. Although…” he trailed off and I heard the rush of his fingers over a keyboard. “Yup, looks like you’re back in the spotlight again. The news already has your speech outside the Velvet Coil playing everywhere. That explains why it looks like you have an active claim on Community District Four... which they are classifying as a Medium Town... that's interesting. Oh and your News Appearance trophy is up to 6 unique events now. Knowing Murphy’s Law, Hydramental probably would have seen this and bothered you in the middle of it if you hadn’t messaged him.”
“That does sound like the exact sort of scenario Axio would cook up,” Angie agreed.
“Yeah let’s just assume that’s what would have happened and praise my on the spot decision making,” I said and rolled my eyes as my feet touched the ground in an alley on the edge of Hell’s Kitchen. I deactivated my gear and strolled out onto the sidewalk, blending in with the passing crowd. I let out an actual sigh before I explained myself. “It’s his brother, he deserves closure, whatever that is going to entail.”
“Yeah… I guess I get that,” Jon admitted as silence overtook us.
The streets were crowded and the air crisp as I slowly made my way across the city, taking in the relatively peaceful streets. Even Times Square, somewhere I made a point of never normally crossing due to its nature as a tourist trap, had a level of normalcy to it that had been largely missing from my life in the last few days. I was tempted to jump on the S-Line right from the station there, but I felt like it would be odd if I just lingered on the subway platform.
By the time my Exhausted debuff had finally worn off, I had been walking around inside the main terminal of Grand Central Station for over fifteen minutes. Even though it was nearly 10PM, the place was still packed. I stayed alert, highlighting random people and finding a distinct lack of Vipers hiding amongst the normal people. That didn’t surprise me, they would have stood out just a bit too much just being out and about… Almost like a guy in a tri-color long sleeve shirt stomping his way through the concourse and toward the entrance to the S-Line.
“I wonder how that shirt works,” Jon mused as I started to follow Hydramental from a distance. “I mean, obviously it’s game generated and all that but is it like, some sort of color changing material or is it three different shirts sewn together that get the rest of their parts when he splits his clones off.”
“My guess would be color changing. Generally speaking one of the first items any Augment gets is something that would help them create a unique enough appearance while benefiting both the Augment’s powerset and their own personal stylistic preferences. Something like Hydramental’s shirt is a great example of how it plays into a powerset.”
“And Loophole got that orange monstrosity of a jacket, because it’s his favorite color and for some reason he’s always wanted a leather jacket,” Jon laughed and I rolled my eyes.
“Really guys, I’m about to attack SnakeBite’s base and you two are talking about fashion?”
“Yeah, pretty much,” Jon said casually. “It’s called levity bud. You have a really bad habit of getting in your head when things get too serious, you literally always have. You did it when you tried to ask Rebecca to prom and you did it when Uncle Chris died. Honestly I’ve been thinking about it and I’m pretty sure that’s the reason that you have Angie.”
“Loophole has me because all Augments have a Personal A.I. generated for them upon Augmentation,” Angie said.
“No, not a Personal A.I. in general, I’m talking about him having you specifically,” he said and I heard Angie hum with curiosity.
“Yeah I’m gonna need you to start getting a bit more specific than that,” I said, wandering down the staircase. The crowd wasn’t big enough that they had to part to give him room but them murmuring and pointing Hydramental’s way as he went made him relatively easy to follow.
“I was reading up on this a bit when you were asleep earlier cause I was curious. As Angie pointed out, Personal A.I.s are generated specifically for the Augments, the database doesn’t give a super detailed explanation of the process unfortunately but it does give enough of the basics that I think I understand the gist of how it works.”
“Silver told me back when I first went in The Common Ground that there were three types. A Navi ‘overly helpful’ type, a Utilitarian type, and an Asshole type,” I offered, though I wasn't sure if it was helpful.
“Well that’s just a massive oversimplification. According to the databases I can see, while the A.I.s sort of fall into those categories at least if you squint at them, they really are more uniquely created to act as motivators for their specific Augment,” Jon explained.
“I tried to tell him that before. I even showed great restraint by not making a perfectly accurate BDSM joke about how much Loophole enjoys being degraded.”
“I don’t enjoy being degraded…” I muttered.
“No, I don’t think that’s it. I think it’s more that you enjoy having someone to butt heads with. Had you been given a Navi or some utilitarian A.I. I think you might have done fine, but you would have really quickly gotten bogged down in all of the seriousness of it. Angie doesn’t let that happen. Even when things are as serious as they can be, she drags you out of it with her jokes, her snark, and yeah, her degrading commentary or desire to hit on me over and over again. She keeps things from getting too heavy because if they did, you’d spiral. You get overwhelmed when things feel too big or too serious, and that can freeze you up. But with her, even before I got brought into this, you’ve been constantly reminded that you don’t have to carry the weight of everything alone or make it some grand, solemn quest. She keeps you grounded in the absurdity of it all, and that gives you space to focus on what really matters.”
There was a moment of silence as I let that sink in, broken only by Angie chiming in with her usual flair.
“Wow, Codex. That almost sounded sweet. Although really, I’m just here to watch Loophole screw up and remind him that he’s a moron when he doesn’t ask me the questions he’s supposed to be asking me… and maybe laugh a bit."
I couldn’t help but chuckle despite myself. Maybe Jon was onto something.
“But yes… that does mean she’s a little bit of an asshole,” He added with a laugh of his own.
I was getting close to the platform for the S-Line. The bathrooms here weren’t single occupancy and I didn’t think I was going to be able to activate my gear in there. Luckily for me, while the main concourse had been pretty busy, the crowd entering and leaving the S-Line wasn’t nearly as bad. It was a risk, I knew that it was, but I did have the forethought to reactivate the passive camera obfuscating aspect of Spectrum Veil on my walk over to the station.
It was still a risk, but I took it as I dipped behind a random pillar, waited a moment and activated my gear and Veil. I moved out from my hiding spot and down the rest of the stairs before I released the ability and popped back into visibility to avoid burning too much stamina. More than a few onlookers jumped at my sudden appearance, but Hydramental’s stomping entrance had already had them prepared for Augments.
“Yo Hydramental,” I called out in as friendly of a tone as possible. I didn’t want the civilians to think that a fight was about to start. Hydramental flipped on his heels and to his credit, didn’t look like he wanted to take a swing at me for leaving him on a roof.
“Ready to do this?” He asked simply and surprisingly he was the one to send the Temporary Team-up request. I accepted it and nodded.
“Yeah, let’s end this.”