Colin kept his face impassive has he dismounted from his motorcycle and walked towards Winslow High School. He was not the first to arrive. PRT workers were already hard at work, along with numerous EMT's and police officers. The parking lot was a flurry of activity. Vehicles were parked haphazardly as emergency personnel tried to bring order to the chaos. Parents were constantly arriving, looking for their children only to be kept at bay by the police officers who had to keep explaining that people couldn't go running through the school when their were so many injured students still inside.
As he approached the main entryway to the school, Colin noticed that the doors (what was left of them) were practically hanging off of their frames. The front vestibule appeared to have been damaged by a very strong acid.
Stepping into the school, Colin surveyed the scene in front of him. Students were laying on the floor, up against the walls to avoid impeding foot traffic, all hurt in some way. The more seriously injured should already have been taken to Brockton Bay General so, hopefully, none of the teenagers here were in danger of dying. That didn't mean they were any easier to look at, chemical burns were always brutal in appearance.
They might not die from their wounds but who knows what infections they could pick up lying on that floor, Colin observed. Discounting all the blood, he had seen prisons that weren't this bad. Graffiti littered the walls and what parts of the floor weren't stained red were faded brown from years of built up grime.
Short of an Endbringer battle, Colin honestly couldn't remember the last time he had seen this many wounded in one location. The only reason they were still here was because the city didn't have enough ambulances to transport everyone to the nearby hospitals. And it's definitely hospitalS, plural, no way BBG can handle such a large influx of patients at the same time, even if that is where Panacea is working. Colin used the virtual display in his helmet to quickly send an email to Director Piggot recommending they commandeer a few of the city's buses to get these kids out of the school before the unhygienic conditions made things worse.
Tuning out the moaning of the people he passed, Colin made his way to the main office. Battery had been nearby when the call of a parahuman attack on the school had gone through so she had arrived earlier and should have a better idea of what the situation was. Colin had been clear across town investigating a seemingly ordinary smash and grab of an office building that turned out to have been a cover for a corporate theft committed by a new group of parahumans, the Undersiders.
Colin was about to walk into the office when he saw through the glass wall that Battery was finishing up a conversation with a faculty member and, upon noticing her boss, was now making her way over to where Colin was standing.
"What's the situation?" Colin asked.
Battery took a deep, calming breath before speaking. "Incredibly hectic. Between dealing with worried parents calling in, us, the police, the news crews, the faculty here has not been very informative, not that I blame them. I've talked with several students and have found enough similarities in the stories to construct a potential timeline but it's all theoretically at the moment."
The two Protectorate heroes walked down the hall, Colin following Battery's lead.
"After first period ended but before second period began." Battery paused to collect herself. "In other words, when the hallways were packed with students, one of the lockers burst open and a wave of some unknown chemical flowed out and down the hall. It travelled at a fast enough speed to pick up multiple students in its path and slam them into walls or each other, resulting in several injuries but it wasn't the primary cause of what you see. The liquid displayed a very strong corrosive property, people's skin was literally dissolved off of their bodies."
"I presume you're taking me to the locker?"
Battery nodded at him.
The two walked in silence, taking in the scene around them. As they got deeper into the school the floor became less and less visible as the bloodstains became more common. Dispersed between them were occasional pools of vomit or other bodily excretions. Eventually, they reached an area ropes off with police tape. The only indication that the locker had even had a door were the two jagged pieces of metal where the hinges would have been. In front of the locker was a tarp, covering a lumpy form.
"Do we know who the vic is?"
Samantha shook her head. "The damage is too extensive for a visual identification and any of the students that would have been standing close enough at the time of the event are all in the hospital."
"Could it be the owner of the locker?"
Again, Samantha shook her head. "No, she's the wrong height for that. The locker belonged to Taylor Hebert, E-B-E, who was several inches taller than the victim."
Colin immediately started a search for any files on Taylor Hebert while he asked Battery, "Do know the whereabouts of Miss Hebert?"
"She may have been part of the initial group that got taken to Panacea. They were so badly injured that no one bothered getting their names, would have cost time they couldn't afford to lose. But it's also possible she was the instigator of all this and didn't get injured at all."
"If she did do this, using her own locker as the starting point seems incredibly short sighted. She'd have to know we'd try and track her down."
Battery shrugged. "Maybe she didn't care." Samantha gave Colin a knowing look. "Tinkers are known to get in moods when the right project strikes them."
Colin didn't rise to the bait his teammate was dangling in front of him. Instead, he focused on the issue at hand. "Tinker does seem the most likely candidate for this. Chemical or bomb or something else along those lines."
"True, though there is another piece of the puzzle you should take a look at."
Colin glanced at Battery, she was pointing at the locker.
After a quick glance, Colin could understand her confusion. "How is there blood IN the locker?"
"Look closer."
He did so. What he saw just raised more questions.
"The blood in the locker has already coagulated. It was in there prior to whatever happened."
"That's not all," Samantha said as she bent down. She used pulled a baton from her back to lift up what Colin had initially assumed to be just another piece of trash strewn about the hallway. "When I first looked in the locker I saw a pad caught on one of the hooks. That was when I noticed there were a lot of pads and tampons on the floor here, most of them partially dissolved by the acid."
"So Miss Hebert was storing a lot of different feminine products in her locker?"
"I don't know. I do know that most women tend to stick with one product, not mix and match with all shapes and sizes like what I'm seeing here."
It's a good thing Samantha is here to notice something like that. That never would have even crossed my mind as unusual, Colin admitted to himself.
His visor pinged to let him know it had found all potential files on Taylor Hebert. With a flick of his eyes he pulled up the information.
"Taylor Hebert, lost her mother prior to starting high school due to a car crash. Father is Daniel Hebert, hasn't remarried, one of the higher-ups in the Dockworkers Union. Actually had good enough grades in middle school to get into Arcadia but her academic record has done nothing but decline since coming to Winslow."
"Her mother getting killed could be enough for a trigger event," Samantha said softly.
"It's possible, but if she triggered that long ago then there should have been signs before this. We watch the junkyards and second hand shops for a reason."
"What if she's not a Tinker?" Samantha suggested.
Colin scratched his beard. "Blaster doesn't seem likely since it started in the locker…Shaker that can create a corrosive substance?"
Battery shrugged. "It's possible that this is a set up, maybe someone wants to frame the poor girl. You did point out that using her own locker would make us immediately suspect her. A recent trigger that has a vendetta against Miss Hebert or maybe her father?"
"It's also a possibility that this wasn't the work of a local, though I don't know of any established villains offhand that have the ability to create gallons of acid. Or this could all be a distraction to cover up for the fact that they wanted this one person dead." Colin sighed. "We have too many theories and not enough evidence. Need to start eliminating possibilities."
Colin kneeled down next to the covered body. "I'll take an x-ray of the vic's mouth, see if I can get a match on dental records." He pulled back the tarp and immediately regretted that his helmet didn't have an airtight seal over his nose.
Colin had been to Endbringer battles, he was familiar with death. He had investigated parahuman attacks before, even examined the corpses of some of Hookwolf's victims. No matter how much he did this, he never got used to the smell of a corpse. Most people would probably view that as a good thing, I just find it annoying.
What little remained of the victim's clothes was in tatters. Colin was able to make out a bra strap so he could confirm that she was female.
Whoever this was, she had managed to get her arms up to cover her face so her head was only missing its skin rather become a patchwork of bone and gristle, which is what the girl's limbs looked like. The torso was….open, there was no other way to describe it. There was a yawning cavity where the chest should be and all her organs were visible, though they too had taken damage from the liquid.
Colin reached out and gently moved the girl's arms so that he could get a proper scan of her head. Once his helmet confirmed it had gotten a useful picture, he pulled the tarp to recover the corpse and stood up, sending the file off to the Protectorate's computers to be compared against other pictures in the government registries.
"I'll do a sweep of the school, see if my equipment can pick anything up. While I'm doing that I'll need you track down the Hebert girl. It may turn out to be a dead end, but that's what we need at the moment. Dead ends mean we can focus in other directions. Have Velocity try to get an accounting for all the staff and students: who's here, who was serious injured and is at the hospital, and perhaps most importantly, which people didn't come to school today."
Battery was nodding. "Makes sense, should I head down to the Docks to speak with her father or do you want me to check to see if she's still here first?"
Before Colin could answer, his helmet alerted him to the fact that it had identified the body. Opening the file, he froze when he saw what name was displayed.
"Armsmaster, what the matter?"
Carefully, Colin walked back to the victim and pulled the tarp off so that he could look at the girl's body again. Right height, right build, I don't see any undamaged skin left but the melted hair appears to be the correct volume…
"Armsmaster?" Battery asked, grabbing Colin's shoulder to get his attention.
"According to the dental records, the victim's name is Sophia Hess."
Colin couldn't feel much through his armor, but he was still able to tell Samantha had just increased her grip on his shoulder.
"Are...are you sure?"
"Dental record is a match, what physical characteristics remain match, she hasn't reported in despite several attempts to reach her, and the GPS tracker in her phone stopped working at the reported time of this attack. All signs point to Sophia Hess being dead."
"So...so then…"
Colin turned to look at his teammate, his voice hardened. "I don't believe in coincidences, Battery. My idea that this was a deliberate attack just gained a lot of traction. Someone discovered Miss Hess's job and this is how they decided to strike at her."
"What...what does this change? How should we handle this?" Battery's voice was quavering but she was starting to get it under control. Colin didn't blame her. It wasn't easy losing someone under your command, especially when it was a Ward, even more so when you weren't there to protect them.
"For you and Velocity nothing changes. We still need to know if Hebert had a hand in any of this, still need to know who was and was not here today. I'll call the Director to let her know and then conduct my search of the school for clues unless she orders otherwise. Someone will need to inform Miss Hess's family of what happened but I shall leave the decision of who up to the Director."
"How...what are you going to tell Piggot?"
"That Sophia Hess was killed in an attack on the school by an unknown parahuman. Current cape designation: Acidbath."